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TRUTH AND ERROR 






TRUTH AND ERROR 



OR 



THE SCIENCE OF INTELLECTION 



7 

J. W. POWELL 






CHICAGO 
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 

(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.) 
1808 



"$%y 



:07 



copyright by 

The Open Court Publishing Co. 

chicago, illinois, 1898 



(All rights reset ved) 



-D* 







TO 

LESTER F. WARD 

PHILOSOPHER AND FRIEND, I DEDICATE 
THIS BOOK 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. Chuar's Illusion i 

II. Essentials of Properties ..... 9 

III. Quantities or Properties that are Measured . . 20 

IV. Kinds or Properties that are Classified . . 31 
V. Processes or the Properties of Geonomic Bodies . 42 

VI. Generations or Properties of Plants ... 64 

VII. Principles or Properties of Animals ... 74 

VIII. Qualities 98 

IX. Classification 109 

X. Homology 133 

XI. Dynamics 152 

XII. Cooperation 168 

XIII. Evolution 183 

XIV. Sensation 207 

XV. Perception 226 

XVI. Apprehension 237 

XVII. Reflection 251 

XVIII. Ideation 264 

XIX. Intellections 278 

XX. Fallacies of Sensation 307 

XXI. Fallacies of Perception 335 

XXII. Fallacies of Apprehension 352 

XXIII. Fallacies of Reflection -374 

XXIV. Fallacies of Ideation . . . e . . 391 
XXV. Summary 413 

Index 425 






TRUTH AND ERROR 



CHAPTER I 



CHUAR S ILLUSION 



IN the fall of 1880 I was encamped on the Kaibab 
plateau above the canyon gorge of a little stream. 
White men and Indians composed the party with me. 
Our task was to make a trail down this side canyon, 
which was many hundreds of feet in depth, into the 
depths of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. While 
in camp after the day's work was done, both Indi- 
ans and white men amused themselves by attempt- 
ing to throw stones across the little canyon. The 
distance from the brink of the wall on which we 
were encamped to the brink of the opposite wall 
seemed not very great, yet no man could throw a 
stone across the chasm, though Chuar, the Indian 
chief, could strike the opposite wall very near its 
brink. The stones thrown by others fell into the 
depths of the canyon. I discussed these feats with 
Chuar, leading him to an explanation of gravity. 
Now Chuar believed that he could throw a stone 
much farther along the level of the plateau than 
over the canyon. His first illusion was thus one very 
common among mountain travelers — an underesti- 
mate of the distance of towering and massive rocks 



2 TRUTH AND ERROR 

when the eye has no intervening objects to divide 
the space into parts as measures of the whole. 

I did not venture to correct Chuar's judgment, but 
simply sought to discover his method of reasoning. 
As our conversation proceeded he explained to me 
that the stone could not go far over the canyon, for 
it was so deep that it would make the stone fall 
before reaching the opposite bank ; and he explained 
to me with great care that the hollow or empty space 
pulled the stone down. He discoursed on this point 
at length, and illustrated it in many ways: "If you 
stand on the edge of the cliff you are likely to fall ; 
the hollow pulls you down, so that you are compelled 
to brace yourself against the force and lean back. 
Any one can make such an experiment and see that 
the void pulls him down. If you climb a tree the 
higher you reach the harder the pull; if you are at 
the very top of a tall pine you must cling with your 
might lest the void below pull you off." 

Thus my dusky philosopher interpreted a subjec- 
tive fear of falling as an objective force; but 
more, he reified void and imputed to it the force of 
pull. I afterward found these ideas common among 
other wise men of the dusky race, and once held a 
similar conversation with an Indian of the Wintun 
on Mount Shasta, the sheen of whose snow-clad 
summit seems almost to merge into the firmament. 
On these dizzy heights my Wintun friend expounded 
the same philosophy of gravity. 

Now, in the language of Chuar's people, a wise 
man is said to be a traveler, for such is the metaphor 
by which they express great wisdom, as they suppose 
that a man must learn by journeying much. So in 
the moonlight of the last evening's sojourn in the 



chuar's illusion 3 

camp on the brink of the canyon, I told Chuar that 
he was a great traveler, and that I knew of two other 
great travelers among the seers of the East, one by 
the name of Hegel, and another by the name of 
Spencer, and that I should ever remember these 
three wise men, who spoke like words of wisdom, 
for it passed through my mind that all three of these 
philosophers had reified void and founded a philoso- 
phy thereon. 

Concepts of number, space, motion, time and 
judgment are developed by all minds, from that 
of the lowest animal to that of the highest human 
genius. Through the evolution of animal life, 
these concepts have been growing as they have 
been inherited .down the stream of time in the flood 
of generations. It is thus that an experience has 
been developed, combined with the experience of all 
the generations of life for all the time of life, which 
makes it impossible to expunge from human mind 
these five concepts. They can never be canceled 
while sanity remains. Things having something 
more than number, space, motion, time and judg- 
ment cannot even be invented ; it is not possible 
for the human mind to conceive anything else, but 
semblances of such ideas may be produced by the 
mummification of language. 

Ideas are expressed in words which are symbols, 
and the word may be divested of all meaning in 
terms of number, space, motion, time and judg- 
ment and still remain, and it may be claimed that 
it still means something unknown and unknow- 
able; this is the origin of reification. There are 
many things unknown at one stage of experience 
which are known at another, so man comes to believe 



4 TRUTH AND ERROR 

in the unknown by constant daily experience ; but 
has by further converse with the universe known 
things previously unknown, and they invariably 
become known in terms of number, space, motion, 
time and judgment, and are found to be only com- 
binations of these things. It is thus that something 
unknown may be conceived, but something unknow- 
able cannot be conceived. 

No man conceives reified substrate, reined essence, 
reined space, reined force, reified time, reified spirit. 
Words are blank checks on the bank of thought, to 
be filled with meaning by the past and future earn- 
ings of the intellect. But these words are coin signs 
of the unknowable and no one can acquire the cur- 
rency for which they call. 

Things little known are named and man speculates 
about these little-known things, and erroneously 
imputes properties or attributes to them until he 
comes to think of them as possessing such unknown 
and mistaken attributes. At last he discovers the 
facts ; then all that he discovers is expressed in the 
terms of number, space, motion, time and judg- 
ment. Still the word for the little-known thing 
may remain to express something unknown and 
mystical, and by simple and easily understood proc- 
esses he reifies what is not, and reasons in terms 
which have no meaning as used by him. Terms 
thus used without meaning are terms of reification. 

Such terms and such methods of reasoning become 
very dear to those immersed in thaumaturgy and 
who love the wonderful and cling to the mysterious, 
and, in the revelry developed by the hashish of mys- 
tery, the pure water of truth is insipid. The dream 
of intellectual intoxication seems more real and more 



CHUARS ILLUSION 5 

worthy of the human mind than the simple truths 
discovered by science. There is a fascination in mys- 
tery and there has ever been a school of intellects 
delighting to revel therein, and yet, in the grand 
aggregate, there is a spirit of sanity extant among 
mankind which loves the true and simple. 

Often the eloquence of the dreamer has even sub- 
verted the sanity of science, and clear-headed, simple- 
minded scientific men have been willing to affirm 
that science deals with trivialities, and that only 
metaphysics deals with the profound and significant 
things of the universe. In a late great text-book on 
physics, which is a science of simple certitudes, it is 
affirmed : 

"To us the question, What is matter? — What is, 
assuming it to have a real existence outside our- 
selves, the essential basis of the phenomena with 
which we may as physicists make ourselves ac- 
quainted? — appears absolutely insoluble. Even if 
we become perfectly and certainly acquainted with 
the intimate structure of what we call Matter, we 
would but have made a further step in the study of its 
properties; and as physicists we are forced to say 
that while somewhat has been learned as to the 
properties of Matter, its essential nature is quite 
unknown to us. ' ' 

As though its properties did not constitute its 
essential nature. 

So, under the spell of metaphysics, the physicist 
turns from his spectroscope to exclaim that all his 
researches may be dealing with phantasms. 

Science deals with realities. These are bodies 
with their properties. All the facts embraced in this 
vast field of research are expressed in terms of 



6 TRUTH AND ERROR 

number, space, motion, time and judgment; no 
other terms are needed and no other terms are 
coined, but by a process well known in philology as 
a disease of language, sometimes these terms lapse 
into meanings which connote fallacies. The human 
intellect is of such a nature that it has notions or 
ideas which may be certitudes or fallacies. All the 
processes of reasoning, including sensation and per- 
ception, proceed by inference; the inference may 
be correct or erroneous, and certitudes are reached 
by verifying opinions. This is the sole and only 
process of gaining certitudes. The certitudes are 
truths which property represent noumena, the illu- 
sions are errors which misrepresent noumena. All 
knowledge is the knowledge of noumena, and all 
illusion is erroneous opinion about noumena. The 
human mind knows nothing but realities and deals 
with nothing but realities, but in this dealing with 
the realities — the noumena of the universe — it 
reaches some conclusions that are correct and others 
that are incorrect. The correct conclusions are certi- 
tudes about realities; the incorrect conclusions are 
fallacies about realities. Science is the name which 
mankind has agreed to call this knowledge of reali- 
ties, and error is the name which mankind has agreed 
to give to all fallacies. Thus it is that certitudes are 
directly founded upon realities ; and fallacies alike all 
refer to realities. In this sense then it may be stated 
that all error as well as knowledge testifies to reality, 
and that all our knowledge is certitude based upon 
reality, and that fallacies would not be possible were 
there not realities about which inferences are made. 
Known realities are those about which mankind has 
knowledge ; unknown things are those things about 



CHUAR S ILLUSION 7 

which man has not yet attained knowledge. Scien- 
tific research is the endeavor to increase knowledge, 
and its methods are experience, observation and 
verification. Fallacies are erroneous inferences in 
relation to known things. All certitudes are de- 
scribed in terms of number, space, motion, time 
and judgment; nothing else has yet been discov- 
ered and nothing else can be discovered with the 
faculties with which man is possessed. 

In the material world we have no knowledge of 
something which is not a unity of itself or a unity of 
a plurality; of something which is not an extension 
of figure or an extension of figure and structure ; of 
something which has not motion or a combination of 
motions as force ; of something which has not dura- 
tion as persistence or duration with persistence and 
change. 

In the mental world we have no knowledge of 
something which is not a judgment of consciousness 
and inference ; of a judgment which is not a judgment 
of a body with number, space, motion and time. 
Every notion of something in the material world 
devoid of one or more of the constituents of matter 
is an illusion; every notion of something in the 
spiritual world devoid of the factors of matter and 
judgment is a fallacy. These are the propositions 
to be explained and demonstrated. 

In the following chapters an attempt will be made 
to show that we know much about matter, and 
although we do not know all, all we know is about 
matter in its essentials of number, space, motion, 
time and judgment, or that we know of matter in its 
four essentials and of mind as consciousness exhib- 
ited in judgment and concepts, but always this mind 



8 TRUTH AND ERROR 

is associated with matter. In doing this we shall 
endeavor to discriminate between the certitudes and 
fallacies current in human opinion. 

In the intoxication of illusion facts seem cold and 
colorless, and the wrapt dreamer imagines that he 
dwells in a realm above science — in a world which as 
he thinks absorbs truth as the ocean the shower, 
and transforms it into a flood of philosophy. Fever- 
ish dreams are supposed to be glimpses of the un- 
known and unknowable, and the highest and dearest 
aspiration is to be absorbed in this sea of specula- 
tion. Nothing is worthy of contemplation but the 
mysterious. Yet the simple and the true remain. 
The history of science is the history of the discovery 
of the simple and the true ; in its progress fallacies 
are dispelled and certitudes remain. 



CHAPTER II 



ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES 



On the threshold it is necessary to state certain 
scientific conclusions which I accept. These are the 
four great doctrines taught by modern science. I 
accept the atomic theory that the constitution of 
bodies is explained as a numerical combination of 
ultimate smaller particles. I accept the modern 
doctrine of morphology, that forms in different kinds 
of bodies exhibit homologies that express degrees of 
relationship. I accept the modern doctrine of the 
persistence of motion as the proper explanation of 
the correlation of forces. I accept the modern 
doctrine of evolution, that higher bodies are derived 
from lower. In accepting these doctrines I try to 
embrace them in all their logical results, some of 
which may seem strange to my readers. I shall 
propound the hypothesis that consciousness inheres 
in the ultimate particle, and attempt to show that it 
harmonizes the principles of psychology. 

The four great doctrines of modern science which 
I have enumerated were originally guesses, but they 
have largely been accepted by scientific men because 
they explain the phenomena of the universe to which 
they relate. The chaos of scientific phenomena 
collected in vast catalogues of facts are seen to be 
explained by these laws. 

The chemical theory may be denominated the 
persistence of units; the morphologic theory the 
persistence of extensions; the dynamic theory the 

9 



IO TRUTH AND ERROR 

persistence of speeds ; the evolutionary theory the 
persistence of existence. 

There are systems of stars, and every system is 
a body. The one to which our earth belongs is well 
known, for the solar system is the theme of the 
venerable science of astronomy. The earth itself is 
composed of four grand bodies: an outer envelope 
of air or atmosphere, a middle envelope of water or 
hydrosphere, an inner envelope of rock or litho- 
sphere, and the grand central nucleus or centro- 
sphere. Neglecting the two outer envelopes and 
considering only the stony crust, we find that it is 
composed of many bodies or formations and these of 
rocks, while there are many plants and animals, and 
all again are divided into grains, crystals or cells, 
and the grains, crystals or cells are divided into mole- 
cules, and molecules are composed of other mole- 
cules, until at last chemical atoms are reached; so 
it is discovered that the universe is a hierarchy of 
bodies. 

The universe is a hierarchy of bodies composed of 
bodies and these again composed of bodies in a vast 
succession as they are reduced by analysis. When 
we come to discuss the relations of these bodies to 
one another it will be convenient and conduce to 
exact expression if we make a distinction between 
bodies and particles, and speak of a body when we 
wish to consider it as a unit and then speak of its 
particles when we wish to speak of the parts of 
which it is composed. A body, therefore, is a body 
of particles which are many in one, the one being a 
body; the many particles severally may be bodies 
composed of particles, that is, one composed of 
many. The solar system is a body of particles, the 



ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES II 

particles being the stars of which it is composed ; the 
earth, one of these particles, may be considered as a 
body, when its particles will be the air, the water, 
the stony crust and the central nucleus; then the 
air may be considered as a body composed of many 
particles, the water may be considered as a body 
composed of particles, the stony crust as a body 
composed of particles, and finally the nucleus as a 
body composed of particles. In this sense it will be 
understood we sometimes speak of something as a 
body and again of the same thing as a particle. A 
body and its particles are reciprocal. When we 
consider a body as composed of particles we con- 
sider internal relations, but when we consider the 
particles severally their relations to one another are 
external. Thus a body has internal relations and 
external relations, and every particle of the body 
also has internal relations and external relations, if 
it is composed of parts. 

A substance is an aggregation of like particles in 
one body or a number of bodies. Bodies are com- 
posed of substances. For example, the air is a 
substance which is again composed of substances; 
the water is a substance, and this water is oxygen 
and hydrogen and contains in solution many other 
substances. In the envelope of rock a great variety 
of substances are discovered; then there are vege- 
tal and animal substances. Thus in the hierarchy 
of bodies there is discovered to be a hierarchy of 
substances, extending from elements to protoplasm. 
The vast multitude of substances have so far been 
resolved into about seventy seemingly simple sub- 
stances, but there is reason to believe that they are 
to be still further resolved into one primordial 



12 TRUTH AND ERROR 

substance, which is called matter. Matter, then, is 
the ultimate substance into which all other sub- 
stances which constitute the bodies of the universe 
are resolved ; and matter may be of one primordial 
kind, or it may be of seventy kinds, more or less. 

Bodies are resolved into more and more simple 
and homogeneous substances, and it is the theory of 
some chemists that ultimate analysis will resolve 
them into one simple kind, so that every particle 
will be like every other particle in all its properties. 
Matter, then, is the ultimate kind of particle into 
which all bodies may be analyzed, and different 
kinds of matter are different aggregations of the one 
kind. The different kinds of matter made different 
by different aggregation are different substances, 
and the different substances are aggregations of 
matter by incorporation. 

An army is composed of men, but there are pla- 
toons, companies, battalions, regiments, divisions, and 
corps in the army. So it is organized or incorporated 
into a hierarchy of units. The platoon is one as 
a platoon, composed of a plurality of men ; the com- 
pany is one as a company but a plurality of platoons ; 
the battalion is one as a battalion but a plurality of 
companies ; the regiment is one as a regiment but a 
plurality of battalions ; the brigade is one as a bri- 
gade but a plurality of regiments ; the division is one 
as a division but a plurality of brigades; the corps 
is one as a corps but a plurality of divisions. Now 
we understand the fundamental property of numbers 
as many in one. The platoon differs in the property 
of number from the individual ; the company differs 
in the property of number from the platoon, and 
the battalion differs in the property of number 



ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES 13 

from the company ; and the same is true of all the 
units in the hierarchy. 

These units of different orders have different prop- 
erties of space ; the platoon occupies more space in 
the field than the individual soldier; the company 
occupies more space than the platoon; the battalion 
more space than the company; and the same is true 
of the other units in the hierarchy. If we have two 
armies exactly alike in a hierarchy of units and 
spaces, then any two corresponding units and spaces 
in the hierarchy would be similar. In speaking of 
the bodies of the universe it is necessary sometimes 
to speak of the corresponding unit in the different 
bodies, and we call them substances. The oxygen in 
one molecule of water is the same in all molecules 
of water, and we call all units a substance. Every 
body of water is composed of molecules of water, and 
there are many bodies of water, and we call bodies 
of water a substance. We thus designate as one sub- 
stance all like units of matter. 

This is very simple. It is merely a statement of 
the resolution of more compound bodies into simpler 
bodies and of more compound substances into 
simpler substances. It is the dissection of bodies in 
parts and the analysis of substances into elements. 

The ultimate particle found in any substance may 
be still further resolved in consideration. Every 
body, whether it be a stellar system or an atom of 
hydrogen, has certain fundamental characteristics 
found in all. These are number, space, motion and 
time, and if it be an animate body, judgment. They 
shall here be known as properties, and to them 
attention must now be turned. 

Let us first consider with what things one inanimate 



14 TRUTH AND ERROR 

particle is endowed. First, it must have unity. 
There must be one, or it does not exist. Second, 
it must have extension, for without extension it 
does not exist. Third, it must have speed, for it 
cannot have motion without speed, nor can it have 
force without motion, and a particle of matter not 
in motion is unknown. The body lying upon the 
ground at rest is not without motion, for it has the 
motion of the earth about its axis and the motion of 
the earth about the sun ; it also has a motion of its 
molecules and atoms, which is heat and structural 
motion. If the body which is lying upon the ground 
is moved the motions are deflected and it is impos- 
sible to discover that any motion as speed is added 
to them. Rest is only the absence of molar motion. 
Fourth, the same particle of matter must have per- 
sistence, for persistence is necessary to its existence. 
Here persistence is used to mean continued exist- 
ence. 

I shall attempt to demonstrate the proposition 
that every particle of matter has consciousness, and 
hence the fifth property here called judgment, but 
shall reserve the discussion of the subject to a later 
part of the work. 

One ultimate particle must have essentials that it 
may exist, but they are all comprehended in one 
particle. If we consider the essentials separately 
we call it abstraction ; if we consider them conjointly 
we call it comprehension, and the terms abstraction 
and comprehension will be used in these senses only. 

These essentials are simple and wholly unlike one 
another. There is nothing in unity like extension, 
nothing in extension like speed, nothing in speed 
like persistence. There is no possible way of 



ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES 15 

deriving one from another. We cannot derive 
extension from unity, but extension must be con- 
comitant with unity; extension and unity are con- 
comitant in one particle. We cannot derive speed 
from extension, but the thing which has speed must 
have extension. We cannot derive persistence from 
speed, but that which has persistence must have 
speed. So we may run through all permutations of 
these essentials and find them wholly unlike one 
another and discover no possible way of deriving 
one from the other. Notwithstanding their total 
unlikeness, they are never dissociated so that one 
exists without the other; they may be considered 
separately but cannot exist separately. They cannot 
be analyzed and the unity placed in one box, the 
extension in a second, the speed in a third, the per- 
sistence in a fourth; but they may be considered 
separately, and this is abstraction as distinguished 
from analysis. Bodies may be dissected, substances 
may be analyzed, essentials may be abstracted in 
consideration. 

The essentials are indissoluble in every particle. 
Where there is no unit there is no extension, no 
speed and no persistence. Where there is no speed 
there is no unit, no extension, no persistence. 
Where there is no persistence there is no unit, no 
extension and no speed. If any of the essentials of 
a particle of inanimate matter be taken away, the 
matter disappears. A particle is the essentials of 
which it is composed, and it has no other substrate. 
It exists in its essentials, and its essentials exist in 
it, and neither existence is separate. The notion of 
a particle of matter as a substrate of essentials, or as 
something to which the essentials adhere or inhere 



1 6 TRUTH AND ERROR 

and from which they may be taken away, leaving 
behind the particle, which is not a unit, an extension, 
a speed and a persistence, is a pseud-idea, the 
result of mythologizing, where the word is taken to 
represent more than the sum of the essentials of the 
object to which it is applied. A unit is a unit of an 
extension, a speed and a persistence. An extension 
is an extension of a unit, a speed and a persistence. 
A speed is a speed of a unit, an extension and a 
persistence. A persistence is a persistence of a unit, 
an extension and a speed. 

Think of properties as number, space, motion and 
time ; then consider the things which must exist if 
these properties exist and you have the essentials, as 
the term is here used. Thus think not of number, 
but of unity; think not of space, but r>f extension; 
think not of motion, but of speed ; think not of time, 
but of persistence, and you have the essentials them- 
selves. 

This chapter is designed to define the essentials of 
an inanimate particle, and to show in what sense the 
terms for the essentials are used. The mathemati- 
cian might say that A stands for unity, B for exten- 
sion, C for speed, D for persistence, E for conscious- 
ness, and you would not find fault. Should he for- 
mulate an equation you would not quarrel with him 
about his symbols, because he uses A for apples, B 
for bushels, C for cents, D for division, and E for 
equality to show the equity of a transaction repre- 
sented by F. Let me use my symbols in my manner, 
if ) r ou would understand my demonstration. Unity 
means one, extension means exclusive occupancy of 
space, speed means change of position, persistence 
means continuance in time. 



ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES I 7 

The statement might be left to stand by itself, yet 
I think it best to explain why I use these terms. 
About the term unity no one will cavil. 

For extension the term impenetrability has been 
used, but it has a negative connotation which I wish 
to avoid. I once thought of using dimension, but I 
soon found that I must use it in another sense in dis- 
cussing measure. Then I thought of space. Now, 
space has a metaphysical use in which it is synony- 
mous with vacuum or void and from which I wish to 
rescue it. So I concluded to use the term extension 
to signify exclusive occupancy of space, and to use 
space itself for the extension of positions of extensions, 
which also includes the extension of the medium 
which makes up the space. Let this be made clear. As 
the terms are here used the particles of the walls of this 
box have extension, and the particles of air which it 
contains have extensions, and the particles of ether 
within the air have extensions, but the space of the 
box includes the extensions of the box, the exten- 
sions of the air, and also the extension of the ether. 
I may speak of the space of the box and refer only 
to the position of the particles of the box and I may 
then speak of the space of the box as the sum of the 
extensions of the walls, air, and ether. It may be 
that the walls of the box have minute apertures in 
which air exists, so that all the air is not excluded 
from the wood, and it is certain that the ether is not 
excluded from the wood. And it may be that there 
are interspaces between the particles of wood, air and 
ether. Therefore even the wood of the box must 
be described in terms of space, not in terms of 
extension. When we come to discuss extension 
itself, we find ourselves considering mass, so that 



l8 TRUTH AND ERROR 

mass and extension are here nearly synonymous; 
but mass is used as the measure of extensions, while 
space is the dimensions of related positions. Mass 
is the measure of the numbers of particles of exten- 
sion, but units of space are measured with units of 
length. 

I use the term speed because in modern physics it 
has exactly the meaning which I desire. The popu- 
lar meaning of velocity is just what I need, but in 
physics velocity means rate of speed and also rate 
of deflection and the term is needed for that purpose. 

I use the term persistence because the term time 
or the term duration means persistence and change 
or they may mean the measure of states separated 
by change, while the term persistence is free from 
these implications. 

If the terms are understood we are ready to pro- 
ceed to another stage of exposition. 

Essentials are comprehended in the same particle, 
and we shall call them concomitants. We shall not 
say that one essential is related to another in the 
same particle, but they are concomitant with one 
another, though the essential of one particle may be 
related to the essential of another particle. A unit 
may be related to another unit, an extension may be 
related to another extension ; but the unit and the 
extension in the same particle are not related to each 
other but concomitant with each other, and these same 
distinctions must be observed with all the essentials. 
The task before us in this chapter is the exhibition 
of the concomitants of particles and relations of 
essentials, concomitants inhering in every particle, 
the relations arising by reason of the relation of 
particles to particles. 



ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES 19 

The student who follows my argument must first 
become accustomed to the discrimination between 
concomitancy and relativity. Relativity is the 
relation of one particle or body to another; con- 
comitancy is the coexistence of one property with 
another in the same particle or body. 

Having deduced or discovered four essentials or 
concomitants in every particle of matter, we have 
yet to determine whether these are all, and for this 
purpose we are compelled to assemble in a passing 
review all of the bodies of the universe. To do this 
it becomes necessary to discover in what manner 
these four essentials become properties as quantities 
and kinds, for we have quantitative properties and 
classific properties. Having discovered how the 
essentials become properties, we can then go on in the 
review of the universe of bodies. 



CHAPTER III 

QUANTITIES OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE MEASURED 

Two short chapters must now be presented which 
will be found rather dry, but they must be mas- 
tered if the subsequent chapters are to be under- 
stood. The principles therein stated are the A, B, 
C, of the work — the multiplication table of our logic. 
I beg of my reader not to be deterred from their 
careful consideration by reason of their simplicity. 

I 

The universe is a concourse of related bodies com- 
posed of related particles. Every relation must 
exist between two or more particles or bodies, and 
every particle or body is related to every other par- 
ticle or body directly or indirectly. The universe is 
a hierarchy of bodies, and thus there is a hierarchy 
of relations. A relation cannot exist independent of 
terms. We may consider a relation abstractly, but 
it cannot exist abstractly. To affirm a relation the 
terms must be implied. When an abstract is reified, 
that is, supposed to exist by itself independent of 
other essentials, and the illusion is entertained that 
there is something independent of the essentials 
which support them, a mythology is created so sub- 
tle as to simulate reality. So when relations are 
reified and supposed to exist independent of terms, 
the mind is astray in the realm of fallacies. When 
it is discovered that rest is only a relation, the mind 
is prone to believe that nothing exists but relation, 



QUANTITIES OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE MEASURED 21 

for we have often discovered that which we thought 
was absolute was in fact relation; but rest is a 
relation between terms which are absolute. The 
internal or molecular motions of the body at rest 
have a certain relation to the external or astronomic 
motions of the body which are changed when the 
body is given molar motion, but the absolutes still 
remain, though deflected. 

Human beings are molar bodies, and have a deep 
interest in one another as such and in the other 
molar bodies with which they are associated. Molar 
bodies and their relations are the first bodies dis- 
covered by primitive man, and his converse with the 
external world at first seems to be wholly with molar 
bodies. Molar bodies are those in which he first 
discovers relations and with which he first consciously 
and purposely associates, and they become the type 
of the others. Molecular bodies are known as such 
only to science. The stellar bodies are first believed 
to be molar bodies, and it is long before the cor- 
poreal structure of the earth is discovered as a body 
of great magnitude associated with other bodies more 
nearly commensurate with them, as the sun, moon 
and stars. 

Of the internal relations of molecular bodies 
little is known even yet, and in the same manner of 
the internal relations of stellar bodies, but little is 
yet known. Our ideas of molecular and stellar 
bodies are largely ideas of their individuality, or as 
units related to units of the same order, while their 
constituent units scarce^ receive consideration. In 
the mechanical or molar world the relations of parts 
are immeasurably more numerous than the parts 
themselves. Not only are rocks multifarious and the 



22 TRUTH AND ERROR 

imperfect embodiments of air and water multifa- 
rious, but special classes of embodiments are dis- 
covered as plants and animals distributed over all 
the earth in multitudinous kinds with multitudinous 
relations, and men as molar bodies are related to one 
another and in all of these relations men are funda- 
mentally interested. 

Relations, therefore, are so great in number and 
so many in kind that the subject of relations is apt 
to overwhelm the mental powers, for man discovers 
that in his reasoning he is forever dealing with 
relations far more than directly with the bodies 
themselves. In this manner he discovers that the 
world is a congress of molar bodies that are related 
to one another through their properties; when they 
are analyzed into related particles or synthesized 
into related bodies, relation seems to swallow all 
else, so that philosophers often assume and some- 
times affirm that all that is known of the universe is 
these relations, and finally that the universe is 
only a system of relations and the substantiality of 
the universe is denied. The universe thus becomes 
a universe of relations without terms. The con- 
founding of concomitancy with relativity is a cause 
of inextricable confusion — a snare to the intellect 
and a vice of logic. Unity and extension are con- 
comitant but not related, while one unit may be 
related to another unit and one extension may be 
related to another extension. Concomitancy and 
relativity must always be distinguished or there can 
be no sound psychology. The antithesis of this 
doctrine is sometimes held, which is an affirmation 
that the substrates of the universe are unknown 
reifications of number, space, motion, time and 



QUANTITIES OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE MEASURED 23 

judgment. About unknown and unknowable things 
any assertion may be made, and all philosophies that 
are founded upon these reifications are therefore 
philosophies of disputation, as no two are alike. 
That which some great mind imposes upon his 
generation is by a succeeding generation gradually 
found to be more or less erroneous, and new philos- 
ophies are thus forever springing up, the one not 
founded upon the other; but gradually from gen- 
eration to generation science establishes some things. 

The relations which we are now to consider are 
those which are discovered when bodies are con- 
sidered as particles. Quite a new class is discovered 
when we consider bodies as bodies. 

As every particle of inanimate matter is a com- 
bination of four essential factors there are four classes 
of relations, namely : relations of plurality, relations 
of position, relations of path and relations of change, 
and these are all concomitant in number, space, 
motion and time. The same fact may be expressed 
in this manner. Relations of number are founded 
upon pluralities ; relations of extension are founded 
upon position; relations of motion are founded upon 
trajectory; relations of time are founded upon 
change. Thus we have four classes of relations that 
must exist between particles. Then bodies have inter- 
nal relations of particles and external relations when 
the body is considered as a particle in a higher body. 

II 

In a former chapter we spoke of the essentials of 

a particle of matter and considered them separately. 

Now we must consider them as they are related. 

There is a multeity of units, and plurality is founded 



24 TRUTH AND ERROR 

upon units. The units are the terms that are related 
to constitute a plurality. A unit is unrelated or 
absolute in unity, that is, its unity does not depend 
upon others, but a plurality is dependent upon a 
number of related units ; for example, the plurality 
may be ten; then ten as a plurality depends upon 
the units of which it is composed ; nine is also a 
plurality, but it depends only upon nine units. A 
plurality is therefore a relation of units considered 
as a sum. Unity is constant only in ultimate 
particles. Bodies are combined, dissolved again 
and recombined, making variable units of plurality. 

I am writing on a sheet of paper ; it is one. With 
a match it is ignited and disappears; it is many. It 
was many before the conflagration, but many in 
one. After the combination these molecules though 
disembodied as a sheet of paper are still related to 
one another by all the concomitants, but now their 
more immediate relations are with the other particles 
of the molecules in which they are combined, while 
the new bodies thus formed have relations to one 
another of a higher degree or order in the corporeal 
world, for fixed internal relations constitute incor- 
poration. Incorporation consists in the establish- 
ment or fixation of internal relations. When a body 
is disincorporated its particles dissolve their relation 
as one and assume relation with others to constitute 
new bodies or enlarge other bodies. 

There is a great variety of relations between 
numbers. Numbers in nature are unified in orders 
of various kinds. The orders thus developed are 
multitudinous and quite beyond human comprehen- 
sion. As the several units are compounds of individ- 
uals of lower units they are related to one another in 



QUANTITIES OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE MEASURED 25 

infinite ways, as one is a multiple or sub-multiple of 
another. Thus we have one-fourth, one-half, equal 
to, twice, four times, etc. Mass is a sum of units 
measured in terms of force, and such units may 
become constituent parts in higher orders of units. 
One number is thus a measure of another. Out of 
these relations ratios and proportions arise. It seems 
unnecessary to enter into a discussion of the relations 
of numbers, as they are developed in the science of 
arithmetic and algebra. 

Ill 

Extension is exclusive occupancy of space. As 
there is more than one extension, and every one 
excludes all others, there is relative position. Thus 
we have positions derived from many extensions. 
Position is the relation of one extension to another. 
Space is founded on extension, for if a particle had 
no extension it could not be an element of space ; a 
plurality of particles, each having extension, con- 
stitutes space. If they are in juxtaposition the space 
is the sum of their extensions. If they are separated 
by a medium, as for example an intervening fluid, 
the space is marked by their position and in this 
sense is related position ; position, therefore, depends 
upon relation, but there can be no related positions 
if the extensions are annihilated. Extension is abso- 
lute, position is relative and space is absolute in 
extension and relative in position ; extension is con- 
stant or persistent in ultimate particles. 

In space one particle may be related to another in 
distance and in direction. These relations give rise 
to geometry and trigonometry and are the relations 
chiefly dealt with in astronomy. 



26 TRUTH AND ERROR 

In order that space may be discussed mathematic- 
ally it must be reduced conventionally to number; 
this is done through the agency of measure. Then 
units of measure are devised giving rise to fractions 
and whole numbers, multiples, and sub-multiples, 
when it becomes amenable to the operations of 
mathematics. 

IV 

Speed exists in the unit of extension whether there 
be other units or not ; speed, therefore, is unrelated 
or absolute. But the extended unit having motion 
must also have path, which is a change of position 
to others and variable by collision with others. It 
is thus relative. Speed is constant in the ultimate 
unit, which will be demonstrated in a subsequent 
chapter; but path is change of position in relation 
to others, and motion therefore is absolute in speed 
and relative in path. 

There is persistence or indestructibility in the 
fundamental unit of extension and motion, but this 
unit changes its relation to other units in position 
and also in trajectory; the persistence is absolute 
and constant, the change relative and variable. 

Motions are related to one another in direction and 
also in the positions of trajectories. Directions may 
differ in innumerable ways and paths may have 
innumerable deflections and thus trajectories may 
have innumerable variables. In order that direction 
and trajectory may be treated mathematically it 
becomes necessary to devise methods for the measure- 
ment of directions which are expressed in degrees 
and of lengths which are expressed in various 
measures. By these conventions motions are 



QUANTITIES OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE MEASURED 27 

reduced to spaces and spaces to numbers, all giving 
an inconceivably great number of relations. But 
there are no motions without particles in motion, and 
there are no speeds without particles having speed, 
and there are no trajectories without particles having 
trajectories. There is no path without a particle 
having the essentials of a particle. 

The science of the mathematics of motion deals 
with the speed of one and its trajectory, the speed 
of another and its trajectory, and of their collisions, 
and for this purpose it has to deal with the measure 
of their relations, and forever relation is considered 
and thus an illusion is sometimes produced, when 
motion itself seems to be wholly relation. Every 
particle of matter is in motion, and while this motion 
is absolute it is also relative. There can be nothing 
relative which is not also absolute, nor can there be 
anything absolute which is not also relative, and 
motion being thus absolute and relative it is quite 
proper to affirm this of motion, but it is not correct 
to affirm that motion is a relation any more than it is 
correct to affirm that motion is an absolute, if by these 
assertions it is implied that motion is one rather than 
the other ; but if these assertions are made with regard 
to one correlative implying the other, then they are 
both correct. It is better form of speech to say that 
motion is absolute or relative when it is desired to 
call attention to one factor or the other, rather than 
to say that motion is an absolute or a relation. 

The motion of particles is of such a nature that 
paths must impinge, and then collisions arise which 
give rise to impulse, or collision by which paths are 
deflected. 

As bodies are incorporated in molecules of higher 



28 TRUTH AND ERROR 

and still higher orders, and through various molar 
forms as crystals, rocks, cells, phytons, plants, organs 
and animals and on into stars and systems of stars, 
each embodiment appropriates a part of the motion 
of its several particles or atoms. The molecules of 
the lowest orders have their motions, the molecules 
of the second order have their motions, the cell and 
the crystal have their motions, the earth has its 
motion and the stellar system has its motion. 

The speed of every particle of matter is the sum 
of all the speeds of the bodies in which it is incor- 
porated. Speed can never be increased or diminished 
in an ultimate particle; it may be increased or 
diminished in any one of its embodiments, but only 
by deflecting the motions in its other embodiments. 
This point is vital to a clear comprehension of the 
philosophy of science and is worthy of further 
illustration from the fact that it becomes necessary 
to rid ourselves of an illusion of sense. I see a bird 
perched upon a tree, then I see it flying through the 
air to perch upon another tree. The bird seems to 
have motion between the trees which it did not seem 
to have while perched on the one or the other; but 
the molecules of the bird before the flight had the 
motion of vitality, and in moving from tree to tree 
the trajectory of these multifarious minute mo- 
tions are all deflected. The millions of millions 
of molecular motions had their trajectories changed. 
The bird itself was moving with the earth about its 
axis and with the earth about the sun, and with the 
sun about a point in Hercules. This is its astro- 
nomical motion. The change in the trajectory of the 
millions of millions of molecules was only the equiv- 
alent of the change in the trajectory of the astronom- 



QUANTITIES OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE MEASURED 29 

ical motion of the bird. We know that all of these 
trajectories are changed; we do not know that the 
velocity or rate of speed of any particle of the bird's 
body was increased or diminished. If Newton's third 
law of motion, that action and reaction are equal, is 
true in the exact terms in which he stated it, then 
we must affirm that the speed of no particle was 
changed but only its trajectory. We do not see the 
astronomical motions of the bird nor its molecular 
motions. We do see the molar motions in flying 
from tree to tree and thus an illusion is produced 
that motion can be created or destroyed by the bird, 
and the persistence of motion seems to be a fallacy 
and the correlation of forces a fiction. We do not 
see the creation, continuance and annihilation of 
motion in the bird, but the deflection of astronom- 
ical and molecular motions as known by scientific 
investigation. This discussion is designed to show 
that motion is not a relation, but that one motion 
may be said to be related to another or related to 
any selected position. 

V 

Time is persistence and change, the persistence 
being absolute because it exists in the particle inde- 
pendent of other particles, and constant, for the par- 
ticles cannot be annihilated. Change is relative, in 
that it inheres in the relations of the particles, and it 
is also variable, for particles are constantly changing 
their relations of position to each other by occupying 
a succession of positions. Thus time is absolute and 
relative, constant and variable. 

The earth as a body changes the position of its 
particles by rotation upon its axis and thus .passes 



30 TRUTH AND ERROR 

through a series of daily events. It also as a particle 
changes its position in relation to the sun in a series 
of annual events. The position of the same body at 
one time may be related to the position of that body 
at another time; that is, its space relations may 
change. 

As the motion of one body in its space element 
may become the measure of the motion of another 
body in its space elements, so the motion of one body 
in its time element may become the measure of 
another body in its time element. While particles 
are related to one another in number, space and 
motion, these relations are constantly changing so 
that they are also related in time ; that is, particles 
are related to each other through their changes. A 
particle unmodified in its individuality may pass 
through a succession of changes by reason of its own 
proper motion determined by the motion of other par- 
ticles. As the orbit of the moon around the earth may 
become the measure of the orbit of the earth around 
the sun, so the day may become the measure of the 
year. We have now found that numbers, spaces, mo- 
tions and times are properties which can be measured, 
and through measurement which is conventional they 
can be investigated. We shall hereafter see how 
large a part of the scientific research pursued by man 
is occupied with these subjects. Quantity is the 
reciprocal of something else which is usually called 
quality, but in the course of this discussion it will 
be found that the term quality is badly chosen, that 
the real reciprocal of quantity is kind or class. 



CHAPTER IV 

KINDS OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE CLASSIFIED 



Having considered the nature of the properties of 
a discrete particle of matter by reason of its own 
existence and the existence of others, we have now 
to consider how these relations are developed by- 
incorporation. Still it is necessary only to draw upon 
the common stock of knowledge and deduce from it 
legitimate results which are easily understood. We 
have shown that the ultimate discrete particles are 
related to each other through pluralities, positions, 
paths and changes, and we have now to consider 
another method of association, for particles of matter 
are incorporated, and enter into fixed associations 
with one another by affinity, the nature of which has 
never been explained, although the association is 
well known. Every particle of matter under certain 
conditions seems to be able to choose its associate, 
and a group of such particles that have mutual 
affinities become compounded into that which is 
usually denominated a molecule. This association 
of particles in a molecule is not easily dissolved under 
ordinary conditions, yet if special conditions are pro- 
vided the association is fickle and old combinations 
are dissolved that new combinations may be formed. 

Then molecules enter into association with one 
another without cohesion in gases, with feeble 
cohesion in liquids, and a more tenacious cohesion 

31 



32 TRUTH AND ERROR 

in solids. A body thus considered of like molecules 
is called a substance. 

II 

In the combination of particles into molecules and 
other bodies, an interesting development of the 
properties is observed. Such a combination pro- 
duces a new unit of a higher order. Here we find a 
new unity made such by combination, and it must be 
observed that it depends upon a plurality combined 
in one. It is therefore a new kind of unit. Thus a 
kind is developed by the combination of a plurality 
of units into one — a process familiar in the conven- 
tional units of arithmetic, where ten units of the 
lower order make one of the next higher order. That 
which is accomplished by convention in arithmetic, 
is accomplished by incorporation in nature. In this 
manner by combination the quantitative property of 
number in the particle becomes the classific prop- 
erty or kind in the molecule, and as there is a hier- 
archy of molecules and every one considered as a unit 
may become a particle in a higher order, we are 
compelled to consider it in this double and relative 
capacity, as one of many and as many in one. A 
molecule in its internal aspect appears as many ; in 
its external aspect as one. Thus we have incor- 
porated units, and these may be incorporated in a 
still higher order, and on indefinitely. There are 
many bodies of a kind and they constitute a class. 
Thus a class is a series or sum of a kind. 

Ill 
Ultimate particles, by reason of their extension and 
position, give rise to space; when they are incorpo- 



KINDS OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE CLASSIFIED $$ 

rated positions are established in relation to one 
another, and thus a form is constituted. It is thus 
that space is developed into form by incorporation. 
It is seen that the particles of the molecule considered 
as such exhibit space with extension and position, 
while the molecule or other body also exhibits figure 
and structure. If we view the body from within 
as composed of particles, space is presented ; if we 
view it from without as a body, form is presented. 

Again, this same molecule may become a particle 
in a higher order of molecules, when it will exhibit 
space characteristics, and a higher molecule will 
exhibit form characteristics. Thus space is the 
reciprocal of form. 

In my room there are desks, chairs, book-cases, 
books and many other articles. Their relations of 
position are relations of space. Were all these 
articles consolidated into one, so that one could not 
be moved without moving all, their relations would 
become relations of form. Contemplate a pile of 
cannon-balls; the relations of these balls to one 
another are relations of space ; combine them into 
one body in such a manner that they will move 
together as one, their relations of space become rela- 
tions of form also. 

IV 

It has already been asserted that a particle cannot 
lose speed. When we contemplate a molecule com- 
posed of particles in which relative positions are fixed, 
we are compelled to develop the thought one stage 
farther and conceive of them as still retaining their 
speeds. The concept of particles with relative posi- 
tions fixed, and every one retaining its motion, can 



34 TRUTH AND ERROR 

be realized by a consideration of facts presented by 
celestial bodies. The earth and moon revolve about 
a common axis which is within the periphery of the 
earth, and each retains its own speed while the 
relative position of each is preserved. But the sun 
and the earth revolve together about a common axis 
in the same manner, and the relative positions are 
preserved, while the relative position of the moon to 
the sun is indirect through the mediation of the 
earth. In like manner it can be shown that the rel- 
ative positions of all the members of the solar sj^stem 
are preserved directly or mediately by a system of 
motion. Now, the solar system may be considered 
as the type of a molecule in which the particles 
retain their speeds and have their relative positions 
fixed by deflection in the motion of revolution. Yet 
the concept is not complete; for every one of the 
members of the solar system is rotating about its 
own axis. So that there is a complex system of 
motions within the solar system by which the orbs 
are kept within the theater of the system itself, even 
though the system as a unit may be revolving about 
some other point in the heavens ; and the fixity of 
position of celestial particles is fixity of space rela- 
tions about axes of revolution. 

We do not know that the particles of a molecule 
move within the sphere of the molecule by a system 
of rotations and revolutions, though such a system 
can be conjectured; but whatever the system may 
be, it must accomplish the same results by confining 
a certain portion of the speeds of the particles within 
the theater of the molecule by a system of deflec- 
tions, and, whatever may be the motion of the mole- 
cule itself in relation to other molecules, the speed 



KINDS OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE CLASSIFIED 35 

of the particle must be partly taken up within the 
molecule, and it must then be divided between 
internal motion and external motion. Let us vivify 
this concept into greater distinctness. 

Imagine a particle moving to and fro in vibration 
at the rate of millions of vibrations a second; the 
sphere of this motion is measured by the amplitude 
of the vibration. If the deflection is something less 
than one hundred and eighty degrees at both extrem- 
ities of the vibration and on the same side, the particle 
will move off in the direction normal to the vibration. 
Its motion in the new direction increases inversely 
with the angle of deflection, until it reaches ninety 
degrees. 

Now consider the speed of the particle in vibration 
when the deflection is one hundred and eighty 
degrees ; then the total speed is represented in the 
vibration, but when the particle is moved in a direction 
normal to the vibration, the speed of the vibration is 
less by the amount of speed taken up in the new 
motion; thus the speed of the particle is divided 
between its two motions. In this manner we may con- 
ceive of the speed of the ultimate particle as being 
divided among the speeds of the bodies of a hierar- 
chy in which the particle is incorporated. What we 
have shown about the speed of a particle in rectilineal 
motion is true of it in all forms of curvilineal motion. 
When one molecule collides with another each has 
its path deflected inversely proportional to its mass, 
for its mass is the sum of its particles, every one in 
motion and having a path of its own, and all of the 
particle paths must be deflected to a greater or less 
degree in order that the molecular path may be 
deflected. The force, therefore, with which one 



$6 TRUTH AND ERROR 

body deflects another and by which it resists deflec- 
tion itself is the sum of the motion of its particles. 
Force, therefore, is a compound of motions. Thus 
motion in the particle becomes force in the molecule 
or other body. But the molecule itself may become 
a particle in a higher molecule, when its force 
becomes a motion which again must be composed. 

V 
We have now to consider the development of time 
by incorporation. It has been seen that time is per- 
sistence and change. The endless persistence of the 
particle is interrupted by changes in its relation to 
other particles, but when these relations are incor- 
porated and become established as kinds, forms, and 
forces, time undergoes a development, for it then 
becomes causation as antecedent and consequent, or 
cause and effect. In ultimate particles collisions 
result in deflections and the changes which occur 
relate to paths; but the particles themselves are 
unmodified. When bodies are considered another 
set of relations are generated. With every collision 
the body may be modified, and a succession of these 
collisions may ultimately produce a great change. 
The change which bodies undergo in this manner is 
called causation. Thus, a body may be deformed or 
broken up, it may grow or decay when cause and 
effect are involved. Whatever happens to a molecule 
is distributed to its particles and is observed in its 
particles. If, now, we discover an effect and desire 
to learn its cause, we find the effect distributed to 
all of the particles which constitute the molecule and 
must go outside the molecule for its cause. This is 
what is known as the infinite regressus of causes. 



KINDS OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE CLASSIFIED 37 

The total cause of any event to a molar body stretches 
out through all the earth, and as the earth is a 
particle in the solar system the total cause embraces 
the sun and its planets and their satellites. Now, 
when we are considering an event as an effect, we 
are considering it as a change in the individual, but 
when we are considering the total cause of the 
change, we are considering the environment. The 
effect again becomes cause, which proceeds onward 
as a multiplication of causes distributed to all the 
environment. In the regressus of causes the total 
cause is multifarious ; but we may from time to time 
consider any one of the effects of the total cause as 
the cause which may be varied in the production of 
an effect ; then out of the effects of the total cause 
the one selected may be known as the special cause. 
This is the cause to which reference is made in com- 
mon speech. An effect is observed in the explosion 
of gunpowder. We may consider the cause as the 
instability of the compound, the ignition of the 
powder with a match, or the purpose of the mis- 
chievous boy, etc. In like manner we may go on in 
an indefinite regressus to catalogue the causes of the 
explosion. When I am considering the conduct 
of the boy I attribute the cause to him ; when I am 
considering the flame I attribute the cause to the 
flame; when I am considering the constitution of 
the powder I attribute it to the explosiveness of the 
substance. These are special causes as distinct 
from the total cause. Man comes to consider cause 
in this manner for a practical reason, for he inter- 
feres in causation for his own ends, and is forever 
searching for the most economic means of changing 
events 



$8 TRUTH AND ERROR 

I am not familiar with any discussion of causation 
equal to that of John Stuart Mill in his work on 
Logic ; but he failed to distinguish causation as an 
abstraction from force, form and kind. In his chap- 
ter on the Composition of Forces, he says: 

" I shall give the name of the Composition of Causes to the 
principle which is exemplified in all cases in which the joint 
effect of several causes is identical with the sum of their sepa- 
rate effects. 

"This principle, however, by no means prevails in all depart- 
ments of the field of nature. The chemical combination of two 
substances produces, as is well known, a third substance with 
properties entirely different from those of either of the two 
substances separately, or of both of them taken together. Not 
a trace of the properties of hydrogen or of oxygen is observable 
in those of their compound, water. ' ' 

In the chemical union of oxygen and hydrogen a 
new kind is produced as water. Here we have com- 
position of kind; when causes are composed new 
conditions are developed ; thus the oxygen and the 
hydrogen are found under new conditions of incor- 
poration. In these new conditions there is a change 
in space relations, so that water occupies less space 
than' the gases of which it is composed ; thus the 
composition of kinds gives rise to the composition 
of conditions, but is not itself the composition of 
conditions as an abstraction. To discuss the com- 
position of conditions it is necessary to discuss the 
very things to which Mill refers when he speaks of 
the development of new properties. 

Heretofore we have used the terms total cause 
and special cause and have shown that the special 
cause is that one of a multiplicity of causes which is 
considered. Recurring to the illustration used 
before, it will be remembered that the cause of the 



KINDS OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE CLASSIFIED 39 

explosion might be considered as the constitution of 
the dynamite, or it might be considered as the spark 
by which the powder was ignited, or it might be con- 
sidered as the act of the incendiary, and in this man- 
ner we obtain the infinite regressus of causes. The 
considered cause may be any one near or remote in 
the infinite regressus. When any one is selected all 
the others become conditions ; hence we have a cause 
and its conditions. So cause is related to effect and 
cause is also related to condition. 

At this moment a man is climbing to the roof of 
my house. The cause of his climbing is a breach in 
the roof which he intends to repair. The cause of 
his climbing is his intention ; the cause of his climb- 
ing is my request ; the cause of his climbing is my 
knowledge of the breach in the roof ; the cause of his 
climbing is the information given me by another 
that my roof leaks ; the cause of his climbing is his 
desire to earn a fee; the cause of his climbing is his 
desire to purchase food ; the cause of his climbing is 
his love of his family; the cause of his climbing is 
the hunger of his children. So we may go on for- 
ever to enumerate remote and distinct causes, and 
when we consider any one of them, the others 
become conditions which must be assumed as neces- 
sary to the operation of the selected cause. 

We have considered teleologic causes; now we 
must consider genetic causes. The man falls from 
the roof. The cause of his falling is the misstep he 
makes; the cause of his falling is gravity; the cause 
of his falling is the greater distance of the roof than 
the surface of the earth to the center of the earth ; 
the cause of his falling is the ascent to the roof; 
the cause of his falling is his coming to make repairs. 



40 TRUTH AND ERROR 

If any one of these conditions had been omitted he 
would not have fallen, and we can go on to multiply 
these conditions to an indefinite degree and discover 
that if any one was omitted this particular case of 
falling would not have occurred. 

Why is one condition selected rather than another? 
This question might be answered by referring to the 
seriality of thought, which is the name for the law by 
which many things cannot be considered simulta- 
neously. To comprehend all of the causes it is neces- 
sary to consider them separately ; and while this is 
not a complete answer, it must be considered as an 
important condition to be understood that the answer 
itself may be understood. Man himself is a causa- 
tor, and changes the currents of events in himself 
and in external nature. All human activities are 
designed to interfere with the course of natural 
events. Man bent upon the modification of events is 
forever intent upon the discovery of the most easily 
variable cause, and no small proportion of his 
energies are devoted to this discovery, and the inven- 
tion of the way by which his discoveries may be 
made of avail. Hence it comes that particular 
causes are selected as those of most interest. Every 
act performed by man, every word spoken is an 
interference in the laws of causation and is designed 
as such. The artisan who repaired my roof inter- 
fered in the laws of causation by making the repair, 
but this interference can only be accomplished by 
the substitution of a new cause. 

VI 
We have now discovered that there is an additional 
property of the inanimate particle when it is incor- 



KINDS OR PROPERTIES THAT ARE CLASSIFIED 41 

porated, and that this is affinity. All we know of 
affinity is that it is the choice of one particle for 
another as its associate or is their mutual choice. 
Here we are introduced to the multitudinous 
phenomena of affini-ty, which can be explained only 
as choice. We must yet go on to consider other 
bodies than molecules to obtain a clearer idea of the 
nature of affinity itself. 

VII 

Class is the reciprocal of number. It is class in 
the body as kind and series, and it is number in the 
particle as unity and plurality. Form is the recip- 
rocal of space, which is form in the body as figure 
and structure, and it is space in the position of the 
extensions of the particle. Force is the reciprocal of 
motion ; it is force in the body as action and passion ; 
it is motion in the particles as speed and path. 
Causation is the reciprocal of time; it is causation 
in the body as cause and effect; it is time in the 
body as persistence and change. 

Number, space, motion and time are concomitant 
as they inhere in the same particle ; kind, form, force 
and causation are concomitant because they inhere 
in the same body. These distinctions are radical, 
and must be firmly grasped if the argument herein 
presented is to be understood, 



CHAPTER V 

PROCESSES OR THE PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 

The particles and bodies of the universe are funda- 
mentally classified in six groups, as follows: (i) the 
particles of the ether, the science of which I call 
ethronomy; (2) the bodies and particles of the 
stars, the science of which is astronomy; (3) the 
bodies and particles of the earth, the science of 
which I call geonomy; (4) the bodies and particles 
of plants, the science of which I call phytonomy; (5) 
the bodies and particles of animals, the science of 
which I call zoonomy; (6) the bodies which are 
invented by men, the science of which I call 
demonomy. 

I shall not write special chapters about ethronomy 
and astronomy, and shall consider demonomy in an 
incidental way and reserve it for a future volume ; 
but I must devote a chapter severally to geonomy, 
phytonomy, and zoonomy, in order that we may dis- 
cover something more about the nature of affinity 
and see if there are other properties which will 
require for their explanation more than the five 
essentials. 

I 

The earth is composed of four bodies surrounded 
by the ether. 

First, there is a central nucleus constituting the 

principal mass. 

Second, there is a crust of structurally disposed 

42 






PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 43 

rock surrounding- the nucleus, the thickness of which 
is comparatively small. 

Third, there is an aqueous body surrounding the 
rocky crust, through which the islands rise, the 
largest of which are called continents. On these 
islands there are many lakes and rivers which ramify 
into innumerable brooks, creeks and rills. 

Fourth, there is an aerial mantle of air extending 
to a limit which is not well determined. 

Fifth, these four bodies, one outside the other, in 
succession, are surrounded by the ether. 

The earth is thus composed of encapsulated globes 
enclosing a nucleus and bathed in ether, to desig- 
nate which certain definitive terms are needed. I 
shall, therefore, speak of the nucleus, the rocky 
crust or crust, the aqueous envelope or envelope, 
and the aerial mantle or mantle, and shall call them 
all spheres. For the sake of clearer distinction, 
these spheres may be called (i) the centrosphere ; 
(2) the lithosphere; (3) the hydrosphere, and (4) the 
atmosphere. It must be observed that the ether is 
common to all of the celestial bodies, and perhaps 
penetrates them as it does the earth. 

The centrosphere is the chief mass and has a 
density of 5.6. By reason of this great specific 
gravity, which is about twice that of the rocky crust, 
it is often supposed to be metallic. Geologic facts 
in a vast system lead to the induction that the 
centrosphere does not exist in the solid state ; if it is 
metallic the weight reduces it to a trans-solid con- 
dition. To this condition the form of the earth testi- 
fies, as it is an oblate spheroid assuming the figure 
of a fluid under the combined action of gravity and 
rotation. These are facts which have led physicists 



44 TRUTH AND ERROR 

to conclude that it must have a rigidity said to be 
equal to that of steel. This rigidity may be explained 
as a function of its rotation, revolution, and molec- 
ular motion, when the physicist and the geologist 
would be in substantial accord. 

The theory of a metallic centrosphere seems ade- 
quately to account for the trans- solid state, as the 
metals are found to flow under pressure; but the 
molten material which from time to time is brought 
to the surface from the interior of the earth never 
reveals this metallic constitution. It may be that 
there is a zone of matter beneath the structural rock 
and overlying the metallic nucleus which is pene- 
trated by heat, now here, now there, and only these 
molten rocks are extravasated ; or it may be that 
the solid state is limited by heat in one direction and 
by pressure in the other in such manner that all 
rocks flow under great pressure as do the metals. 

The stony crust has been revealed by direct pene- 
tration to a depth of more than six thousand feet, 
but it is indirectly revealed in many regions to a 
much greater depth, perhaps in extreme cases to 
fifty or sixty thousand feet. 

The islands of dry land have all been beneath the 
sea at some time or other, and all show that they 
have been submerged more than once, some more 
frequently than others. During that portion of the 
history of the crust, which is the theater of geological 
investigation, these periods of submarine condition 
in one region always appear to be contemporaneous 
with periods of subaerial conditions in some other 
region. Thus there seem to have been regions of 
dry land and regions of ocean bottom coexisting with 
a large predominance of oceanic area. 



PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 45 

The aqueous envelope covers the rocky crust over 
about three-fourths of its surface, and has an average 
depth of about twelve thousand feet, though in 
extreme cases the bottom of the sea is more than 
five miles below its surface, while in some few cases 
mountains rise to more than five miles above the 
level of the sea. It is certain that we are now able 
to study rocks which were deposited at depths much 
greater than that of the mean depth of the ocean, 
and there are many cases where rocks found on the 
summits of high mountains are known to have been 
deposited at great depths beneath the sea. Great 
regions of country are at one time submarine, and 
at another subaerial. These oscillations of upheaval 
and subsidence are oft-repeated in geological his- 
tory, and the swing of oscillation seems to have been 
in some regions tens or scores of thousands of feet 
where they reach the maximum, and to be only tens 
or scores of feet at the minimum, so that the surface 
of the earth, in so far as it has been studied geolog- 
ically, is found to give evidence of oscillations of 
level varying in these quantities. 

These variations are geographically heterogene- 
ous : one region may have its oscillation on a small 
scale, another on a large scale, the minor oscillations 
forming distinct geographical series and the major 
oscillations forming distinct geographical series; 
that is, one region has been subject during geo- 
logical time only to minor oscillations, and another 
during the same time to major oscillations. 

We must now more fully consider the nature of 
these movements. Sometimes upheaval is by anti- 
clinal flexure, where the rocks are lifted along a line 
of upheaval and caused to dip away on either side in 



46 TRUTH AND ERROR 

gentle or abrupt slopes which are sometimes beauti- 
fully curved ; but such an upheaval often seems to 
be accompanied by a subsidence on the flanks. 
Symmetrical anticlinal flexures are not very common, 
but often one side slopes gently while the other is 
abruptly deflected. This abrupt slope is especially 
subject to rupture, in which case faults are substi- 
tuted for flexures. Thus a block which dips gently 
in one direction has its margin, on the side of a 
fault, displaced as an abrupt escarpment. Blocks 
formed in this manner often careen upon their edges, 
so that the strata may become vertically disposed or 
quite overturned where the lower formed strata are 
found on top. Between careened blocks and flexed 
blocks no line of demarcation can be drawn: the 
same block in different parts of its course may be 
bent or broken, and the flexed blocks themselves be 
quite overturned. The rocks which are upheaved 
or depressed by faulting and flexing, one or both, 
are always found to be ruptured in line of the faults 
or flexures, and also transversely to them. This 
rupture is often minute, so that the sheets of rock 
are faulted and jointed and thus found in blocks of 
varying dimensions, but all very minute as com- 
pared with the widely spread formations from which 
they are broken. Thus the whole system of rocks, 
of igneous and aqueous origin alike, are broken into 
blocks by faults and ruptures, and still further 
divided by planes of deposition, so that the structural 
crust is a system of fragments sometimes with an 
area of many yards, other times with an area of 
fractions of inches. When we compare these blocks 
with the great area of the structural crust we find 
that it is but an accumulation of blocks that are to 



PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 47 

the formations what grains of sand are to the blocks. 
We must now realize that the structural crust 
nowhere has a continuous coherence; that faults, 
joints, and partings render it a vast body of minute 
and loosely accumulated fragments. All of this 
upheaval and subsidence with flexures, faults, joints, 
and partings seem to have been brought into this 
condition by intermittent convulsions often exhibited 
in earthquakes. 

Having contemplated the lithosphere as a body 
moving in upheaval and subsidence, and shown 
what is about the maximum and minimum of these 
oscillations and their paroxysmal character, we are 
prepared to consider the structure of this crust. 

In all geological ages volcanic eruptions have 
occurred and rocky material from the depths has 
been brought to the surface. Such appearances of 
lava at the surface have been very common in human 
history, and they appear to have been just as com- 
mon in all the geological ages revealed by science. 
Lavas vary in chemical and miner alogical constitu- 
tion, but this variation is within narrow limits. All 
of the mineral substances known to mankind appear, 
but are intimately mixed as minute ingredients. 
Lavas, therefore, are intimate mixtures of many sub- 
stances, the average of which falls within narrow 
limits. It would appear from our present knowledge 
that the primordial surface of the earth was cooled 
lava and that lava has been erupted from time to 
time through all of the great geological ages. 

Upon these cooled surfaces a new crust of rocks 
from below and rocks from above appears to have 
been spread. Wind waves and tidal waves are for- 
ever beating the lands and undermining the cliffs 



48 TRUTH AND ERROR 

and distributing the materials beneath the sea. 
Then atmospheric agencies disintegrate the rocks 
and the rains wash the sands into the streams, which 
carry them into the lakes and into the sea. By 
many cognate processes the lands are worn down 
and the sea bottoms built up ; the amount of detritus 
thus accumulated in zones about the meandering 
shores is great, so that in regions of maximum 
activity formations are accumulated thousands of 
feet in thickness. 

The winds contribute to the material which falls 
into the sea; plant life also furnishes its quota; 
accumulations of vegetation are ultimately con- 
solidated among the formations as beds of coal ; and 
animal life adds to the marine formations, for corals, 
shells, and bones are all brought to be buried in the 
sand, and often extensive formations of calcareous 
matter are thus produced. From these sources the 
sedimentary rocks are brought to be mingled with 
the eruptive rocks and intercalated among them, 
while in turn they are thrust between the sedimen- 
tary rocks. 

Layers of rock of sedimentary origin appearing as 
strata are commingled with other masses of rock of 
volcanic origin which come from the interior. Some- 
times the lava flows under or between the sedimen- 
tary strata. When great masses of lava are found 
in these conditions they are called lacolites. Thinner 
sheets are called intrusive rocks. Beds poured over 
the surface are called coulees. The floods of lava 
come through fissures and fill them both below and 
above coulees, intrusions, and lacolites ; such fissure 
formations are called dikes. Where the lava comes 
forth in volcanoes, the orifices are filled with molten 



PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 49 

rock which consolidates and are then called chim- 
neys. Great bodies of lava are ejected by some 
volcanoes as scoria and ashes, and often the ashes 
are minutely comminuted; the expulsion of such 
material is doubtless due to the production of gases 
and vapors, especially of steam, and the com- 
minution is probably due to the explosive actions of 
particles of water expanded into steam. Great vol- 
canic cones are often formed by the piles of scoria 
and ashes which are extravasated, and the ashes 
themselves when highly comminuted are drifted by 
the wind, sometimes far away from the locus of 
eruption. Beds of ashes and scoria formed in this 
manner are called tuff. So the bodies of rock formed 
by eruption are commingled with the bodies formed 
by sedimentation, and all are known as formations. 
Both the sedimentaries and the eruptives undergo a 
further change, which to a greater or less extent 
obscures their origin, for the original formations are 
metamorphosed, that is, recrystallized and lithified ; 
so that the planes of sedimentation are partly or 
largely obscured and the beds of lacolites, intrusive 
sheets, coulees, dikes, chimneys, and tuffs have a 
new structure imposed upon them, and are then 
known as metamorphic rocks. 

An attempt has been made to define formations ; 
now they must be considered in a new light. 

The land areas have always been subject to 
degradation by rains, rivers, and waves, and the 
materials washed from the land have been carried 
into the sea and there deposited ; thus the continu- 
ance of dry land area is comparatively ephemeral. 
Not only are the lands degraded in this manner, but 
when they reach the level of the sea they continue 



50 TRUTH AND ERROR 

to subside; when above the sea they are speedily 
unloaded, but when brought to the level of the sea 
or nearly so the islands, though having their loads 
discharged, continue to sink. The regions which 
have received the detritus of the islands and are thus 
loaded by them, are elevated into the island or con- 
tinental condition; thus land areas rise to be un- 
loaded and then sink, while oceanic areas are loaded 
and then rise to become land areas. The extent of 
this upheaval and subsidence and the vertical move- 
ments, involved together with the vast transporta- 
tion of material from land to sea, seems to be enor- 
mous when we contemplate the almost silent and 
unseen agencies by which it is accomplished. 

In considering large areas of the surface of the 
earth, as, for example, the great continents or zones 
of archipelagoes, we reach certain generalizations of 
prime significance. 

Regions of great denudation are also regions of 
great deposition, regions of great eruption, regions 
of great upheaval and subsidence, and also regions 
of great flexure and fracture ; thus denudation and 
deposition, eruption and displacement (as subsidence 
and upheaval and as fracture and flexure) are corre- 
lated in this manner: that where there is more of 
one there is more of all; where there is less of one 
there is less of all. 

Geologists have found no law, condition, or cause 
by which to explain these phenomena of the earth's 
crust as the law of gravity explains the constitution 
of celestial systems. The search for this law has 
been almost exclusively in one direction, under the 
hypothesis of a cooling and contracting earth, but 
with the lapse of time it has been found inadequate. 



PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 5 I 

Attempts have been made to compute the amount 
of contraction supposed to result from the wrinkling 
of the crust of the earth in anticlines and synclines. 
It seems to entirely fail quantitatively. Contraction 
does not seem to be an explanation of all or even the 
chief phenomena which we have briefly set forth. 
When this hypothesis was considered, flexion 
seemed to be the chief method of displacement ; now 
we know that fracturing and faulting is the chief 
method in regions of maximum action. When 
inclined rocks are studied they seem to have been 
stretched, as evidenced in the elongation of particles 
transverse to the strike, and they seem further to 
have been stretched by the opening of fissures and 
joints. Altogether it may be affirmed that displace- 
ment does not teach the doctrine of a contracting 
earth, or, if that statement is too strong, it does not 
give evidence of a sufficient contraction necessary to 
the hypothesis, and it also fails to explain the 
concomitant phenomena. 

With this hypothesis another is associated, namely, 
that the centrosphere of the earth is metallic, for 
which no vestige of inductive evidence has yet 
appeared ; and the stupendous fact remains that the 
centrosphere has more than twice the density of the 
crust. All eruptive rocks which come into the pur- 
view of science are found to have an average con- 
stitution which is about the same as that of the sedi- 
mentary rocks. It is found by experiment in the 
industrial arts that under pressure metallic and 
other substances flow ; and geology teaches that all 
of the other rocks are secularly deformed under 
differential pressures, so that rocks highly metamor- 
phosed in this manner are twisted, contorted, and 



52 TRUTH AND ERROR 

kneaded into new shapes. Finally, there is now 
abundant geologic evidence to show that the faulting 
near the surface appears as flexure at greater depths, 
and finally that flexure appears as molecular read- 
justment at still greater depths, expressed in slaty 
structure where the particles of the rocks are rear- 
ranged in parallel planes. 

The metals of the normal condition have great 
density, but in a pure condition are found only in 
exceedingly minute quantities ; all the other rocks 
have a small density. If we now assume that all rocks 
flow under pressure, that the critical point is vari- 
able and that the modulus of compression is also 
variable, being greater for the lighter rocks and less 
for the heavier, and that this modulus is greatly 
accelerated at the critical point, we have a law 
which will regiment the facts of geonomy as the facts 
of astronomy are marshaled by the law of gravity. 

Under this theoretic law of the accelerated mod- 
ulus of compression at the critical point for different 
substances, subsidence and upheaval are explained. 
The reassumption of constitutional structure in 
crystallization and glassy lithification necessitates 
expansion, and thus upheaval is explained. When 
lands rise and are denuded, the process of relithifica- 
tion in the centrosphere continues upheaval and 
exposes the lands to further upheaval, and this proc- 
ess goes on until an equilibrium is reached at the 
epoch when the land is brought to the level of the 
sea by degradation. On the other hand, as land is 
loaded the subjacent crust rocks are brought within 
the zone of accelerated compression, and this proc- 
ess continues while the loading continues until it is 
brought to a close at the epoch when the land area 



PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 53 

from which the detritus is taken is brought to the 
level of the sea and transportation ended so that load- 
ing ceases. 

Universal contraction by cooling must still be 
postulated as an agency for the destruction of 
equilibrium, or perhaps we may find this agency in 
astronomical conditions; but some such agency is 
necessary for the continuation of the process. But 
the changing of material from the interior to the sur- 
face and the changing of load from one district to 
another by transportation under the law of the accel- 
erated modulus of compression is the principal 
agency of upheaval and subsidence. 

This doctrine was proposed several years ago by 
myself, but has received little attention except 
among a few geologists engaged in this branch of 
research ; from its reception by these gentlemen I 
am encouraged to repropound it. 

The hydrosphere requires a little further con- 
sideration. The water evaporates from the surface 
aided by a variety of conditions which cannot here 
be considered ; as vapor it floats in the air ; then the 
rocks by atmospheric agencies are reduced to dust 
and blown by the winds and seized by the vapor, so 
that particles often become the nuclei of raindrops. 
The falling of the water restores the particles of 
dust to the crust. On the other hand the water 
penetrates the rocky crust by the innumerable 
fissures which have already been described and along 
the partings of the rocks and among the sands of 
which they are composed. In a condition of vapor it 
is probable that it penetrates through all of the 
stony crust. Thus it falls into the earth by streams, 
by capillary channels, and into the metamorphic 



54 TRUTH AND ERROR 

masses at great depths, where it assumes the role of 
an agent of rearrangement in crystallization. There 
is much evidence to show that this finally becomes 
the agent of explosion when the rocky masses are 
thrust by the weight of superincumbent rock into 
the centrosphere, for this seems to be the explana- 
tion of the tufaceous material thrown out by vol- 
canoes. This penetrating water becomes the agent 
of another process which goes on in the crust on a 
vast scale, for the waters, especially when they 
become thermal, dissolve certain substances and 
redeposit them as they are evaporated above and as 
they become waters of crystallization below. 
Especially are the metals treated in this manner, 
giving rise to metallic lodes by solution in the water 
and their subsequent evaporation and crystallization. 
The formation of mineral lodes in this manner is 
a long but interesting chapter in the story of geology. 
We now have a condensed but perhaps sufficient 
account of the structure of the earth in spheres and 
their interaction in the production of formations. 
We must now consider these formations abstractly 
in the light of the essentials as they are changed in 
relations of quantities and categories into formations. 

II 

In the deeply seated rocks substances are trans- 
muted by recomposition, secularly accomplished by 
changes in heat and changes in pressure which pro- 
duce chemical reactions. As the rocks sink under 
the materials piled upon them by extravasation and 
deposition, they are faulted and jointed, and this 
permits the water to flow in underground courses ; 
these flowing waters dissolve certain substances on 



PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 55 

their way down, and deposit them again, filling the 
joints and fault seams with deposits accumulated 
from higher grounds. As the upper and lower sur- 
face of the crust is approached the rate of change in 
the substances is increased until these surfaces are 
reached. At the upper surface the disintegrated 
rocks form an overplacement of soils which undergo 
such chemical reaction that the substances of vegetal 
life are produced. This material, exposed for longer 
or shorter periods, is transported by streams to lakes 
or to the sea and sinks to the bottom, where it is 
recombined into various substances, especially as 
carbonate of lime, chloride of sodium, other salts, 
clay and coal. All of this transmutation is a numer- 
ical change in the relation of the atoms to the mole- 
cules of the substances developed. Let us call it 
metalogisis. 

The new substances which appear in the changes 
wrought by the agencies which have been described 
are segregated in the deeply seated rocks as crystals. 
Those which are formed in the fissures appear as 
bodies of ore and those that are washed from the 
surface and deposited at the bottoms of lakes and 
seas are arranged in strata, but as the waters them- 
selves dissolve the substances of the surface they are 
often recombined and crystallized. Thus it is that 
the new substances are segregated and the new mass 
of comminuted material has the new kinds developed 
in this manner, separated more or less distinctly from 
the kinds of the original mass. Thus metalogisis is 
the genesis of new kinds and their segregation by a 
succession of changes. 

Thus we see that in the processes that go on in the 
crust of the earth new kinds of substances are 



56 TRUTH AND ERROR 

developed and new kinds of formations produced, 
and the chemist finds these substances to be 
arranged in series, and the geologist finds that sedi- 
mentary formations are arranged in series. So in 
geonomy, kinds are developed into series. 

Ill 

With the change in kind comes the change in form 
which is accomplished by minute increments. When 
the mineral substances are recombined in the deeply 
seated rocks they are slowly metamorphosed by 
recrystallization and rearrangement in slaty struc- 
ture. The ores are deposited in mineral lodes and 
to some extent crystallized. The sedimentary for- 
mations are arranged in layers or strata, and are 
thus seriated. Heavier and larger materials are 
sooner deposited, lighter and smaller materials are 
slowly thrown down, and the currents of the water 
carry them farther away from the shore ; thus there 
is an assorting process which is still farther extended 
by the deposition of materials in solution. In this 
manner the structure of the rocky cellate is con- 
stantly undergoing metamorphosis. 

The slates are seriated and the sedimentary strata 
are seriated. Thus kinds are seriated as forms 
revealed in structure and figure. The elements of 
structure are set forth in a more elaborate form in 
structural geology when slaty structure, lode struc- 
ture and stratified structure are the themes, and 
where flexures, faults, fractures and displacements 
are set forth in describing the structure of moun- 
tains, plateaus, hills and plains as slates, lodes and 
strata, giving figure to the topographic features and 
the endless variety and beauty of the topographic 



PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 57 

landscape. This figure is revealed in valleys with 
stream channels and canyons. 

In plains that are sometimes baselevels being 
asymptotic and sometimes surmounted with monad- 
nock elevations, in plateaus with abrupt escarpments 
and fringing hills, in mountains which are often 
systems of ridges carved by gorges into peaks or 
elevated as volcanic cones, all spread with a parterre 
of forest, meadow, field and flower through which 
flow rivers, creeks, brooks and rills, where cataracts 
and cascades are found and where fountains issue 
from the rocks and lakes are nestled that mirror the 
vegetal-clad shores ; while away to the polar region 
the ice gathers, and the glaciers break into icebergs 
and float down the sea, or following the land, carve 
valleys and build moraines. All these things and 
many more constitute the theme of physiography, 
which is a description of the figure of the oblate 
spheroid. A succession of changes of form we call 
metamorphosis. 

IV 

In the change which comes in the development of 
the rocky cellate, forces become energies ; that is, 
pari passu with metalogisis and metamorphosis there 
is metaphysisis ; and metaphysisis is energy and 
work as reciprocals. The same fact is sometimes 
expressed in another form. The spherical members 
of the earth and the formations of which the crust is 
composed exhibit strains and stresses in their interac- 
tion and these strains and stresses produce changes. 
The varying heat of the ether by contraction and 
expansion rends the rocks and is an agency for their 
disintegration. The ether evaporates the water, the 



58 TRUTH AND ERROR 

wind carries it about and fills the air with dust, and 
the dust and vapor again fall to the earth as rain, 
and the falling becomes a process of disintegration in 
part, but mainly an agency for the transportation of 
material of the rocky cellate by sheets of water into 
streams and by streams into the larger bodies. 
Then gravity acts as a process, throwing the load of 
transportation to the bottom in assorted layers. 
Then the percolating waters exhibit new processes of 
transmutation. With all of this there go the proc- 
esses of strains and stresses in the rocks themselves, 
some formations being relieved of pressure and 
others having pressure added, and all these work 
their changes. Then there are the processes of 
extravasation consequent upon the relief and addi- 
tion of the strains and stresses. 

All of the processes which are here but partly 
enumerated are intermittent. The ethereal proc- 
esses change hourly and daily with the longitude, 
and vary with the latitude. The winds blow and are 
calm; evaporation goes on until critical conditions 
are reached when storms fall; floods are also vari- 
able, and floods produce effects in geometrical ratio. 
The pressures of formations have their accelerations 
intermittent, so that stresses are revealed by earth- 
quakes, and the fractures caused by earthquakes pro- 
duce the channels for eruption, and add to pressures 
and stresses. 

There is a change in hydrostatic pressure of such 
importance that it must not be neglected. The 
waters that are wedged between the stony blocks 
and thrust into pervious strata and absorbed into all 
of the rocks by processes of crystallization are sub- 
ject to the same intermittent activities. 



PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 59 

Again, on the streams of great floods, great blocks 
are loaded, and as these blocks become larger they 
are the more efficient as hammers in the corrasion 
of stream channels both vertically and laterally ; so 
that glaciers load themselves with rocks and become 
the agencies of corrasion by which valleys are carved. 

All of these processes are the work of gravity, 
heat, light, electricity and magnetism, and combined 
they produce a set of chemical changes which, as a 
mode of motion, we call chemism, which must be dis- 
tinguished from affinity, for affinity means choice, 
while chemism means energy, and valency expresses 
numerical proportions. Heat produces expansion, 
gravity produces contraction in the materials of the 
rocky crust, and, conjoined, they produce chemism. 
This geochemism is the fundamental energy. 

Stresses and strains are produced in celestial 
bodies as exhibited in their spheroidal structure, but 
chemism appears in the particles of which celestial 
bodies are composed, and at present we cannot 
study these particles in any other celestial body than 
that of the earth ; chemism is a new mode of motion 
exhibited to us only in the earth, though we may 
conjecture that it exists in other globes if we could 
examine into their geonomy. A succession of 
changes of force is metaphysisis. 

V 

We have next to consider a succession of causes 
and a succession of effects. The rill rolls down the 
declivity ; by the process of corrasion a channel is 
cut, and this effect is a continuous deepening of the 
channel. The cause is a process and the effect is a 
process; a serial causation, therefore, is a double 



6o TRUTH AND ERROR 

process, one of cause and the other effect. The 
water on its way down the rill transports the abraded 
rocks ; thus there is a constant process of cause in the 
flowing of the water, and a constant process of effect 
in the transportation of the load. When the rill 
reaches the foot of the declivity by the change of 
grade in the stream it is no longer able to carry the 
load, and it is deposited. The constant process of 
discharge from the water results in a constant proc- 
ess of deposition upon the bottom. It is in this 
manner that causation is continuous, and such a cau- 
sation is a double process. A serial force is a process. 
In energy the work done by force is proportional to 
the time in which the force acts, but in the process 
this law does not necessarily obtain, for cause is not 
wholly a question of force but it is also a question 
of form and kind. 

The rate at which the stream corrades its channel 
is due in part to the mass of the water and the 
declivity of the stream, that is, energy, but it is 
also dependent upon the form of the rocks and their 
chemical constitution. If they are easily disinte- 
grated they are loaded the more, and the sedimentary 
particles as the instruments of corrasion are multi- 
plied. Much depends upon the constitution of the 
rocks. If they dissolve in minute particles they 
corrade less ; if the particles are larger they corrade 
more. Thus the rate of corrasion is a function of 
force, of form and of kind, and hence there can be 
no equality between the work done as an effect and 
the energy as a cause. Again in transportation of 
the material the rate of transportation depends upon 
the rate at which the supply is furnished, and not 
upon the force of the waters, for the supply is load 



PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 6 1 

and the load adds its own weight to the gravitating 
energy. The condition of fineness in the particles 
constituting the load will greatly aid transportation ; 
the larger particles will sink sooner, the smaller 
particles will be carried farther ; the deposition will 
in one place be of large particles, another place of 
small particles ; hence a new effect is produced, that 
of sorting the material. It has already been shown 
that causes are multifarious and run into an infinite 
regressus, and between no one of these causes and 
the effect does there exist the relation of equality, 
and because the causes are disparate from the effect 
there can be no equality between the cause and 
effect. 

This is one of the strange fallacies often met, 
and its origin lurks in the term action and reaction 
w r hen bodies in motion collide. A and B are two 
bodies in motion; they impinge and are mutually 
deflected. Now if we consider A before the deflec- 
tion and after it, we have the two directions sepa- 
rated by an event. The same is true of B before the 
collision and B after it. At the collision there is a 
double cause involved in the incident motions of A 
and B before the collision, and a double effect in 
their reflected motions. As force there is a mutual 
action and reaction, then there is equality existing 
between them. As cause and effect there is a mu- 
tual causation. The angle of incidence equals the 
angle of deflection ; that is, there is equality between 
angle and angle as relations of form ; but this is not 
a relation of cause and effect as such. We must find 
the cause of the collision, and then we may find 
what the collision causes. Change the conditions in 
the two particles ; let one of them be easily crushed 



62 TRUTH AND ERROR 

and the other not, then one ball will rebound and 
the other will be shattered. Now action and reac- 
tion as force will still be equal, but cause and effect 
will be different conditions ; one body has its course 
changed, the other body is shattered into fragments, 
and these fragments take different courses. Thus it 
is seen that between cause and effect equality can- 
not be asserted. There is no equality between a 
word of command and prompt obedience to the com- 
mand. There is no equality between sunrise and 
the opening of the morning-glory; there is no 
equality between the story of the Bonnie Brier Bush 
and my emotion. It is always abuse of logic to 
assert that equality exists between cause and effect, 
although the first mode of causation has that charac- 
teristic as change of direction. 

When we consider force as force there is always 
equality between action and reaction ; but when we 
consider force as cause, then no relation of equality 
exists between it and effect. A unit of force may 
raise a hundred pounds to a given height ; two units 
of force may raise two hundred pounds to the same 
height. Thus the work is proportional to the force ; 
but we are not considering a relation between forces 
but a relation between cause and effect. When in 
lifting the weight we consider it as an effect and 
wish to refer to its causes, they are found to be in 
the machinery by which the effect was produced, in 
the application of the force to produce the effect, 
and in the origin of this force. That is to say, when- 
ever we are examining the relation between cause 
and effect we are examining into conditions or states 
and not into equalities or inequalities of force. 
When a weight of a hundred pounds is raised a unit 






PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES 6$ 

of altitude, the effect is a new position, and the force 
employed, which was one of the causes of the new 
position, is an action equal to the lifting of the 
weight as reaction. But the cause might have pro- 
duced a very different effect than that of lifting the 
weight ; the effect might have been the breaking of 
the rope ; then the cause is the force and the effect 
the fracture. Cause and effect are not relations 
of force to force, form to form, nor kind to kind, but 
they are relations of time to time as they are affected 
by force, form and kind. There can be no cause 
without force, form and kind; that is, we cannot 
analyze cause but can only abstract it. We cannot 
put cause in one basket, force in a second, form in a 
third, and kind in a fourth ; and this is only a repeti- 
tion of what I have said about unity, extension, 
speed and persistence. 

A process of causality is here called metagenesis 
and a series of changes are produced. 

We have now seen that the four essentials are still 
represented in the processes of geonomic bodies, and 
we also see the action of affinity in these bodies, 
and affinity itself is never revealed except as choice. 



CHAPTER VI 

GENERATIONS OR PROPERTIES OF PLANTS 
I 

We are yet to follow properties through higher 
degrees of relativity. For this purpose it becomes 
necessary to examine the relations exhibited by 
plants in metabolism, growth, vitality, and heredity. 
Plants are not wholly disparate bodies, but rise by 
a discrete step or degree in relativity not exhibited 
in ethronomy, astronomy and geonomy. So that 
not only are the properties in those realms found in 
this new realm, but in addition a new set of relations 
which we denominate generations. We have, there- 
fore, to examine those characteristics by which plants 
are distinguished from geonomic bodies, of course 
in only a general and summary manner. 

In plants new kinds appear by chemical recomposi- 
tion. A new substance, protoplasm, is constituted, 
being organized of many molecules of different 
kinds, which again combine with other substances. 
These molecules seem to be still further arranged in 
different proportions, by which the new plant sub- 
stances become many; the formation of these sub- 
stances is called assimilation. 

The many substances of plant tissue have a 
secular development which is growth in size and 
form. The period of existence of the plant body is 
limited, and at death returns to simpler conditions ; 
this return is decay, and belongs to the grade of proc- 
esses. In growth the plant undergoes a change of 

6 4 



GENERATIONS OR PROPERTIES OF PLANTS 65 

increasing relativity, and in decay returns to a 
simpler state of relativity. 

During growth, which is an increase of form and 
structure by a succession of changes, it also exhibits 
a new mode of motion, which is vitality or life, and 
the cessation of this activity is death, when the plant 
returns to the geonomic world by decay. But 
assimilation, growth and life are continued from one 
generation to another, and imply time from period 
to period. This time is occupied in making changes, 
and causation is metagenesis. Now a new element 
of time appears, for by producing germs and thus 
multiplying individuals like itself the same stages of 
metabolism, growth and life observed in the parents 
are repeated in the offspring. This new element is 
heredity, in which the offspring inherits the poten- 
tiality of the parent as it is restricted within certain 
narrow limits to careers of metabolism, growth and 
vitality similar to that of the parent. 

Thus generations are generations of processes. 
The processes are assimilation, construction and 
destruction, growth of form and structure, vitality 
exhibited in endosmosis and exosmosis, and finally 
processes are repeated by heredity represented by 
parents and children. 

In this grade of concomitants it must be observed 
that there can be no assimilation without growth, 
no growth without vitality and no vitality without 
heredity. 

Indeed, as we go on to contemplate the concom- 
itants that appear by increasing relations, it becomes 
more and more evident that one cannot exist with- 
out the others, and that abstraction must always be 
distinguished from analysis. It becomes possible to 



66 TRUTH AND ERROR 

treat the whole process of plant formation as assimila- 
tion or as growth or as life or as heredity, and yet 
we distinguish these concomitants in thought. If 
we treat of the assimilation of plants, the phytology 
of plants, the vitality of plants or the heredity of 
plants through germs, we seem to take the whole 
subject in view, for the concomitants are not dispa- 
rate but only abstract in consideration. 

II 

I define constructive assimilation as the building 
up of protoplasm, a compound composed of many 
molecules, and I define differentiating assimilation 
as the recombination of protoplasm into other sub- 
stances which are simpler compounds. These sim- 
pler substances are composed not only of some of the 
molecules of protoplasm itself, but also of other sub- 
stances, and are used for various purposes in the 
economy and structure of the plant. In these re- 
combinations a surplus of substance is found which 
is excreted by the plant in two ways: first, as water 
which is imbibed and used as a vehicle for other sub- 
stances, for the amount of water is in excess of the 
amount ultimately used in the tissue of the plant, 
and is excreted by transpiration ; and second, as car- 
bon-dioxide, for the oxygen of the air unites with an 
excess of carbon, and it is then excreted by respira- 
tion. Thus protoplasm is the basis of the tissues of 
the plant; but to make these tissues it must be 
recombined into different substances which are 
newer compounds, and new substances not found in 
protoplasm are necessary therefor. The water which 
is necessary for protoplasm is furnished together 
with an additional amount which becomes the 



GENERATIONS OR PROPERTIES OF PLANTS 67 

vehicle for the new substances, and the surplus is 
excreted. In the building of new substances oxygen 
from the air is needed to dispose of some of the car- 
bon, and this office is accomplished by respiration. 
Imbibition of water by the roots furnishes the 
material for assimilation both constructive and 
differentiating, while respiration in the leaves fur- 
nishes the oxygen necessary for certain chemical 
changes. We must now consider the substances 
produced by assimilation. 

The plant is a chemical laboratory of exceeding 
complexity, where all of the operations are carried 
on with marvelous deftness and delicacy, and with a 
system of chemical paraphernalia adapted to the 
operations of microscopic life. The entire plant is 
engaged in these operations as long as life lasts, 
sleeping in partial rest by night and hibernating in 
semi-torpidity during the winter, but carrying on its 
operations in full vigor when the sun is genial. 
Assimilation deals with particles so minute that even 
the eye of the microscope cannot see them, and they 
can be known only when aggregated in masses as 
material for use or as products, but the operations 
are carried on particle by particle in such a manner 
that what is and what becomes reveal the method 
of becoming only to the eye of reason; thus ulti- 
mately all chemical knowledge is the product of 
inference. Nevertheless this inferred knowledge is 
erected upon a foundation of consciousness as 
revealed by the senses, and the ultimate proof of the 
validity of the inferences is the multiplication of facts 
as they are accumulated in vast numbers by history 
and attested by the verification of prophecy ; finally, 
as the facts are resolved into laws their congruity is 



68 TRUTH AND ERROR 

made evident. The love of truth born of the gene- 
rations of thinking minds forever engaged with the 
materials of consciousness in the process of inference, 
ultimately establishes a habit and love of truth that 
submits every judgment to the tribunal of congruity, 
the court of equity which every man erects in his 
own soul. This is the supreme court of judgment. 

History may decide and prophecy may confirm, 
but these decisions are annulled if the court of con- 
gruity finds them contradictory. Experience in the 
laboratory may pile up facts, prophecy in the 
laboratory may be fulfilled in multitudinous cases; 
but under the decrees of the court of congruity if 
any incongruity appears the chemist is turned again 
to his experiments, resting assured that somewhere 
his facts or theories are wrong, and he plunges into 
his labors to reach peace only when congruity is 
found. To a man who has not devoted his life to 
chemical research and has familiarized himself only 
to a limited extent with the history and theories of 
chemistry, the vast body of experiments, the innu- 
merable verifications of prophecies and the congeries 
of congruities which have developed since Dal ton 
propounded the atomic theory are such a monument 
of accomplishment by inference and verification 
that they appear as a pyramid of truth. 

The fact to which especial attention is called is 
this : That the laboratory reveals in the substances 
of plants innumerable new kinds and these new 
kinds are found in series. 

Ill 

The plant is a laboratory for the evolution of many 
substances ; but as the particles of which they are 



GENERATIONS OR PROPERTIES OF PLANTS 69 

composed have number and as they are arranged in 
numerical, that is, molecular orders, they have at 
the same time extension, and their arrangement 
implies that they are placed in forms. Thus having 
considered generations of kinds, we are led to the 
consideration of generations of forms, and the forms 
which we have to consider are forms of cells, forms 
of tissues, forms of phytons and forms of plants. 
Plants also exhibit forms of crystals ; the crystalliza- 
tion is fundamentally a theme of geonomy, so on the 
very start of this subject we are confronted with the 
fact that the plant exhibits the concomitants of lower 
relativity, but for present purposes we may neglect 
them. 

The normal and developed cell has three concen- 
tric envelopes which may be called blasts, the whole 
enclosing a nucleus, so that the structure which we 
found in the earth as spheres is repeated here as 
blasts. These are the exoblast, mesoblast, and 
endoblast. Some plants are single cells, other 
plants are aggregates of loosely attached cells joined 
together as threads or as webs of threads as in the 
slimes, but in plants of a little higher grade these 
webs are consolidated by a woof of plant tissue as 
in some of the lichens and seaweeds. 

The tissues are consolidated and modified cells. 
Then tissues are differentiated, exhibiting different 
structures; different structural tissues are again 
related and modified for the performance of func- 
tions as phytons and the phytons are systematized 
to constitute the plant, but the phytons are differen- 
tiated for special functions and we have the roots for 
imbibition, the leaves for respiration and tran- 
spiration, the circulatory apparatus for transporta- 



70 TRUTH AND ERROR 

tion, the floral phytons for reproduction and the 
protecting apparatus for the external covering of 
plants. 

A system of phytons constitutes the higher plants. 
In the history of plant life the morphology of plant 
phytons is an important part of the science of 
botany, for the forms of phytons undergo a suc- 
cession of changes, the investigation of which vies 
in importance with that of the chemical development 
of kinds to which we have heretofore alluded. 
When the different classes of plants are examined 
in this respect, the succession appears in the develop- 
ment of classes, those plants of the lower classes 
passing through morphologic stages which are 
repeated in higher classes and continued to still 
higher stages, so that the plants of the highest class 
practically include all of the stages in succession as 
exhibited in the order of the lower classes. While 
some research has been devoted to this subject, much 
more requires to be done. 

IV 
That which we call chemism is one of the con- 
comitants of process and is here transmuted into 
vitality. Vitality is chemism internally controlled 
by the plant in obedience to the laws of heredity, 
and externally controlled by heat, gravity, and strain 
which produces stresses. Thus vitality is anew 
mode of motion. We must here remember that 
motion as speed is inherent and constant in the 
particle and that motion as path is always determined 
from without, but the particles within the body are 
all external to one another, and therefore the direc- 
tion of motion which is internal to the body is in 



GENERATIONS OR PROPERTIES OF PLANTS 7 1 

obedience to the laws of heredity, and the direction 
of motion which comes from without the body is 
heat, gravity and strain. Heat and its modification 
as light and perhaps as electricity and magnetism 
play an important role in vitality, which has been 
subject to much investigation by the observation of 
nature and artificial experimentation. The vitality 
of the plant is accelerated by heat, and becomes 
torpid when it is insufficient. Certain chemical proc- 
esses, like that of the production of chlorophyll, are 
dependent upon light. Doubtless gravity exerts a 
direct influence upon the functions of the plant, but 
this influence has had inadequate examination. 
Stress and strain are exhibited as endosmosis and 
exosmosis, exhibited to us in the circulation of fluids 
through the membranes of the cells, and is an 
important theme in the physiology of plants. 

V 
As the plant germinates the motions of its par- 
ticles in change are directed by the preexisting con- 
stitution of the germs; assimilation, therefore, is a 
directed motion, and as changes in assimilation and 
growth proceed the continued motion of vitality is 
controlled by antecedent conditions. In this manner 
the plant must pass through the same phases of 
assimilation and growth through which the parent 
proceeded; thus conditions are imposed which con- 
stitute causation; but there are other causes than 
those inherited, for the germ may not grow at all ; it 
may not get footing in the soil, it may not find 
sufficient moisture, or the moisture may not contain 
other necessary ingredients. When it starts the 
frost may nip it, the sunlight may fail it because of 



72 TRUTH AND ERROR 

an overhanging shade, herbivorous animals may 
devour it, man may dig it up. All of a multitude 
of conditions are necessary that a plant may mature ; 
and these causes may be traced to the ultimate sup- 
ply of food, as effecting the assimilation, to external 
forms which cast destructive shadows or protect 
from destruction, or they may be traced to external 
forces, so that there are heredity conditions and 
environmental conditions. 

The plant is thus subject to inexorable conditions 
by its inheritance, and these conditions restrict its 
growth to the course pursued by its ancestors ; but 
heredity is not the only factor of causation involved ; 
the environmental factors may succeed in prevent- 
ing, arresting or modifying the development of the 
plant. When the plant arrives at maturity and pro- 
duces other germs, they also are subject to the laws 
of heredity ; but the inheritance which they receive 
has accumulated in the development of the parent. 
Thus as generations pass there is secular develop- 
ment. 

VI 

Metabolism implies affinity, and again we have the 
problem of its nature in plants. It has often been 
surmised, and sometimes taught, to be choice. It 
seems to be the same thing in plant life, but there 
are other phenomena which appear in plants which 
suggest that the ultimate particles have not only the 
power of choosing their atomic and molecular associ- 
ates, but they also seem to have the power to a 
limited degree to choose the attitude of their phytons 
toward external objects in space. Thus certain 
phytons seek the soil where they may perform the 



GENERATIONS OR PROPERTIES OF PLANTS 73 

function of roots, and others seek the air where they 
may perform various functions in the plant life. 
These subaerial phytons seem to be able to direct 
their course toward different objects, when they 
require support, as in the case of climbing plants, 
and the leaves seem to be able to open or close in 
order to adjust themselves to conditions of light and 
darkness. The investigations into these functions 
of the plant are numerous and interesting, but they 
have been pursued mainly with the purpose to 
account for them as of a mechanical nature. Yet 
the problem remains: Have the plant elements the 
property of choice? If they have such a property 
they must also have consciousness. 

We find in plants the same essentials: unity, 
extension, speed, and persistence as they are com- 
pounded into the properties of number, space, 
motion, and time, and as they are further developed 
as time, form, force, and causation ; we also find the 
fifth property of affinity, which now seems to be 
choice even more plainly than we have found it in 
other bodies. 



CHAPTER VII 

PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 

We are yet to consider a higher degree of rela- 
tivity than that exhibited in the bodies which we 
have heretofore examined. This higher degree is 
the discrete degree observed in animals. Plants have 
assimilation, which is both constructive and differ- 
entiating. In animals this rises to a high degree 
of relativity in that assimilation, both constructive 
and differentiating, is coincidently accompanied 
by destruction of the part that is reconstructed. 
The plant assimilates until its growth is com- 
plete, except in the higher plants in which the leaves 
drop from time to time and are returned to the 
inorganic world, and except in the same higher 
plants germs are given off which may be returned 
to the inorganic world, or continue as new plants 
when new plants are developed, but the trunk of the 
plant remains while it grows, and is returned to the 
inorganic world only when it dies. The animal 
assimilates and coincidently with this assimila- 
tion gives up a part of its material to the inorganic 
world. This is what I call metabolism, which is 
both constructive and differentiating of the material 
wrought into the structure of the body, while at the 
same time a part of the material of this structure is 
disintegrated and returned to the inorganic world. 
Thus the animal dies in part that it may live as an 
individual, and if it ceases to die in part it ceases to 
live, and when it ceases to live through death, it dies 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 75 

altogether and returns to the inorganic world. In 
other words we may say that in the plant phytons 
are dropped and renewed, but in the higher animals, 
organs which are homologous to phytons are not 
dropped and renewed, with minor exceptions, 
although molecules of the organ are discarded and 
coincidently new molecules take their place. By 
metabolism, therefore, we mean something higher 
than assimilation by a discrete degree of relativity. 

So the animal grows not only by molecular 
additions to its substance, through which its size is in- 
creased, and whereby structural material is added, 
but the structure of the animal itself is constantly 
undergoing a change. Throughout the whole ani- 
mal body a reconstruction is forever in progress; 
and this continues even after growth ceases as long 
as life lasts. This is the new principle of form, which 
is reconstruction. 

Every particle of matter has speed, which cannot 
be increased or diminished, but the particles of 
inanimate matter seem mutually to direct one 
another's paths except in the case of incorporation, 
when they seem to be directed by affinity, the nature 
of which is not fully explained. The animal has a 
new power by which it determines its own path as a 
body; thus it can direct its own course. The animal 
is encompassed by an environment out of which it 
cannot pass but within which it can move as it 
chooses. With some animals this environment is the 
atmosphere, with others it is the hydrosphere, while 
other animals are fixed to the rocky sphere and have 
their movements greatly restricted in the hydro- 
sphere or the atmosphere. Of those animals that have 
three degrees of freedom in the two outer spheres 



76 TRUTH AND ERROR 

many are restricted by climatic conditions. The 
mode of motion by which animate bodies are capable 
of this higher degree of motion I call motility, 
which is self-directed molar motion or self-activity. 

As this self-directed molar motion appears in the 
animal it enlarges its theater of action, being able 
to seek a new theater in which its self -activity may 
be employed. Thus the animal, no longer confined 
by a narrow environment, is able to invade a new 
region and exercise itself there. The animal can go 
from one environment to another in search of new 
conditions, changing the environment by its activi- 
ties and taking advantage of the new environment 
by receiving the effect which the new environment 
produces. It is necessary for the plant to remain in a 
fixed environment and to act only when it is acted 
upon, but the animal may seek an environment more 
congenial and conducive to its wants, or ideals of 
good ; thus it may escape evil on the one hand or 
acquire good on the other. It may choose its activi- 
ties. This I call self-activity, which is force of a 
higher degree of relativity than that observed in 
plants by a discrete degree. 

The animal, like the plant, has heredity, and its 
ancestors are the causes of its activity from which it 
cannot wholly escape. Its self -activity is therefore 
only within the compass of its hereditary activity; 
but while it has hereditary activity it is also subject 
to environmental actions, which are also causes from 
which it cannot escape. But as it chooses its environ- 
ment within degrees of freedom, the environment 
is not wholly inexorable. Thus if food does not 
come to the animal the animal may go to the 
food. When the storm comes it may escape its 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 77 

action "by seeking shelter, and in multitudinous ways 
it may choose the activities in which it was engaged, 
and choose the actions of others to which it will sub- 
mit. 

The lower forms of plants multiply by subdivision, 
but in the higher plants they multiply by sexual con- 
jugation, the different sex organs being produced in 
the same plant or in different plants. In these 
higher plants the conjugation is adventitious in that 
the pollen must be carried by the wind or by insects 
or other agencies from the male to the female plant. 
But the higher animals have the power of choosing 
their mates, so that the continuance in generations 
is controlled by volition. 

In plants, male and female germs, as particles, 
conjugate or choose one another. In the higher 
animals male and female bodies conjugate as bodies. 
This conjugation is accomplished by the mutual 
choice of the individuals as bodies, and the mutual 
choice of the individuals as bodies involves the con- 
sciousness of both, and this consciousness must have 
expression, and this expression is language. Hence 
reproduction in animals is dependent upon the 
mutual choice of animals, which choice is expressed 
in language in some form or other. Here we have 
a discrete advance in degree of relativity in repro- 
duction which we call expression. 

In animals we clearly find a fifth property which 
we cannot ignore, and which ultimately we shall find 
to be strangely like affinity. This property of the 
animate body permits it to form judgments about the 
nature of environments, and then it may form judg- 
ments about the good and evil of these environments 
in relation to itself. Judgments grow into concepts 



78 TRUTH AND ERROR 

as judgment is added to judgment by experience. 
Thus a body of judgments is formed concerning 
every object in the environment which grows by 
increments of judgments. These concepts, which 
are the creation of the animal, constitute the fifth 
principle which we have to consider. We have there- 
fore metabolism, reconstruction, motility, expression 
and conception with which to deal in the considera- 
tion of animal bodies. 

These five principles exist in the lowest protozoa 
or unicellular animals. The evolution of animal life 
is the development of organs of metabolism, recon- 
struction, motility, reproduction and conception. 

The five systems of organs are concomitant in the 
same animal body. They are also concomitant in 
every organ of the body, so that when we describe 
organs it becomes necessary to consider their con- 
comitants. An organ may have the function of one 
concomitant, but it has the essentials of all the con- 
comitants, for they cannot be dissociated, as we have 
many times seen. A certain part of the matter of 
the body is set apart to perform a specialized office 
for the other parts ; and this specialization is accom- 
plished by assigning a function to the essentials or 
concomitants severally. It is thus that there are five 
systems of organs; the first for metabolism, the 
second for reconstruction, the third for motility, 
the fourth for reproduction, and the fifth for con- 
ception. Thus we have the digestive apparatus, the 
circulatory apparatus, the motor apparatus, the gen- 
erative apparatus and the conceiving or thinking 
apparatus. These apparatuses are completely con- 
comitant with one another; so that every organ of 
the body, whatever function it may peform, must 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 79 

also perform the other four functions in an ancillary- 
manner. When we are considering an organ we 
are compelled to consider a dominant function with 
four ancillary functions; or it may be stated in 
another way: an organ cannot act but in a coopera- 
tive way with other organs. Thus while the essen- 
tials are concomitant in every particle of matter they 
are also concomitant in every cell, in every organ, 
and in every body. If the expression may be per- 
mitted, nature reasons as men reason, abstractly, 
but is always cognizant that abstractions can be real- 
ized only in the concrete. Thus the mouth is one of 
the organs of the digestive system ; but it also has 
ancillary organs of circulation, motility, reproduction 
and conception. The eye is an organ of the con- 
ceiving apparatus, but it has ancillary organs of 
digestion, circulation, motility, and probably of 
reproduction. The animal itself is an organ in a 
society of animals. Society is the culmination of a 
hierarchy of organs of lower grade, and every organ 
in every grade of the hierarchy has ancillary organs. 
Without entering into these subjects at length, we 
must give a description of these organs and func- 
tions of the animal with such elaboration only as our 
present purpose demands. 

II 

Again in this higher realm of relativity we are 
forced to consider the numerical relations of ultimate 
particles in a hierarchy of molecules which appear in 
kinds of substances. For present purposes we may 
not delay the argument for the purpose of setting 
forth the metabolic processes of digestion and excre- 
tion by which vegetal food is wrought into animal 



80 TRUTH AND ERROR 

bodies in all the kinds of animate things ; we may 
simply illustrate the facts necessary for this argument 
as they are derived from the higher animals. Diges- 
tion begins with mastication and a special substance 
is developed in the salivary glands to elaborate the 
food. Then the food is carried to the stomach, where 
another special substance is furnished by the liver. 
Finally the materials of the food are digested, exclud- 
ing such indigestible substances as are taken into the 
stomach, and the selected and prepared food is the 
blood, which bears a relation to the animal analogous 
to that which protoplasm does to the plant. Out of 
the blood all of the tissues are wrought, each in its 
kind, and every tissue is a kind of its own, and there 
are kinds of kinds, so that the animal organism is a 
chemical laboratory engaged during the existence of 
the animal in building up more complex substances 
and tearing them down into more specialized sub- 
stances, and this is metabolism, or zoochemistry. 
When the animal dies decay supervenes as a chemi- 
cal process. The metabolic organs, therefore, are 
the organs of digestion which prepare the food for 
the blood, the organs of secretion which furnish 
material to aid digestion, and the organs of excre- 
tion. The science of the chemistry of animate sub- 
stances is yet in its infancy and the kinds appearing 
in the animate realm are at the present stage of 
research vicariously represented by forms. We 
must therefore consider them as factors of morphol- 
ogy. The blood is composed of serum, which is the 
vehicle of transportation. In this serum there float 
erythrocytes or red corpuscles, which are unicellular 
organisms into which much of the food has been 
converted and which is the material for reconstruc- 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 8l 

tion. Thus the tissues of the animal are reconstructed 
out of unicellular organisms. In the blood there 
are also leucocytes and other unicellular organisms. 
We cannot enter into a discussion of the functions 
which these additional organisms perform, but go on 
to remark that the red corpuscles are built into the 
tissues of the animal or stored temporarily in fatty 
structures which are subsequently used in the tissues. 
In so far as these red corpuscles are incorporated into 
the tissues by molecular rearrangement, and in so far 
as they are decorporated by molecular arrangement, 
we have metabolism ; while in so far as this produces 
a change of form, reconstruction is involved. Here 
the rearrangement of molecules by number becomes 
structural arrangement in form, for in a body kinds 
and forms are concomitant. 

Ill 

The blood prepared by the organs of metabolism 
is delivered to the organs of reconstruction. These 
are the blood-vessels, consisting of the heart, veins, 
arteries, and capillaries, by which the material is 
transported and distributed to the parts where recon- 
struction is carried on. Thus there is a system of 
organs for reconstruction. 

That which we found in the geonomic realm as 
spheres and in the phytomic realm as blasts, we here 
find in the zoonomic realm as derms, and we have the 
ectoderm, esoderm, and endoderm as encapsulating 
bodies, with a concentric nucleus. These cells 
are modified as they are combined into larger cells, 
but the cellular structure is still preserved in organ 
and individual. The metabolic organs or those of 
digestion, secretion and excretion are compound 



82 TRUTH AND ERROR 

nuclei inclosed in cellular sacs ; sometimes these sacs 
are greatly elongated so as to be tubular, but in 
general the organs of digestion and excretion have 
a cellular form with permanent compound nuclei or 
with passing nuclei when they are conduits to con- 
tents. 

In the circulatory system of organs the same der- 
mal structure is observed with its triune elements. 
In the heart there is a compound nucleus, but in the 
artery or vein the nucleus is passing content, and in 
the higher animals there is a vast system of ramify- 
ing tubes, which are duplicated as arteries and veins 
directly connected in the heart, and functionally 
connected with the capillaries. 

In the activital or muscular system every organ is 
a fascicle of muscles, and each member of the fasci- 
cle has a dermal structure. The nucleus of the 
heart is a compound muscular organ of this charac- 
ter, whose function is to impel the blood; muscular 
tissue undergoes important metamorphoses, becom- 
ing tendonous and osseous for a variety of mechani- 
cal purposes. Tendons are dermal in structure, 
and bones are sacs enclosing nuclei of osseous 
tissue. 

It was in the bony structure that homologies of 
form were first discovered, and the homologies of 
the vertebrate skeleton was at one time the sole theme 
of morphology. Of especial interest were the trans- 
formations that were discovered in the vertebrae in 
the development of limbs and cranium ; but the sub- 
ject of morphology has passed out of this stage into 
a wider field embracing all realms of nature. Only 
of late has it appeared in the morphology of forma- 
tions and land features. 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 8$ 

The reproductive cells are compounded into organs 
still preserving the typical structure. 

It is in the organs of sense that the most mar- 
velous changes of form are discovered. The metabolic 
sense organs are thrown into two not thoroughly 
differentiated groups known as the sense of taste and 
smell; but these groups seem to be continuous, that 
is, without a well-marked plane of separation ; the 
one group, that of taste, taking cognizance of liquids, 
the other, that of smell, taking cognizance of vapors. 
The organs of touch are distributed throughout the 
skin ; these are primarily the sense organs of form. 
The sense of stress or pressure seems to be in or 
immediately under the skin; the sense of duration 
or time is the sense of hearing, and the sense of 
ideation is the sense of seeing. The homologies of 
mouth and nose, skin, muscle, ear and eye, are yet 
imperfectly known ; though much research has been 
bestowed upon them they are difficult to under- 
stand. Thus there are homologies of form in all the 
hierarchy of organs, for they all have the dermal 
structure. 

IV 

There are five modes of motility called functions; 
these are the functions of the metabolic, circulatory, 
muscular, reproductive and reasoning organs, as 
heretofore set forth. Metabolism continues as long 
as animate life continues, but is increased when the 
special function of the organ is stimulated ; that is, 
both anabolism and catabolism increase in the organ 
by increase of its special function, but metabolism 
wanes as special function wanes. 

The reasoning function may increase or retard the 



84 TRUTH AND ERROR 

other functions, though it cannot wholly inhibit their 
action nor can it increase their action beyond certain 
limits. This fact is well known to psychologists and 
physiologists. It seems to be accomplished by the 
promotion of metabolism. 

Here we are confronted with a problem met before 
concerning the nature of affinity which we have not 
been able to solve. If it were permitted to hold the 
doctrine which has been entertained by some great 
minds that every particle of matter has judgment, 
the question would be solved and affinity would be 
conscious choice. Affinity is often expressed as 
choice and many chemists have held this doctrine. 

Next we have to consider how molar motion in 
the individual is self-directed. We have seen that 
molar motion is accomplished by compound organs. 
These organs are found in pairs, so that one acts 
against the other. We have seen, too, that the 
mind can accelerate metabolism and the mind can 
direct the motion of the animal. Now let us sup- 
pose that the mind can accelerate anabolism in one 
muscle and catabolism in its opposing muscle, and 
we have a very simple explanation of the nature of 
the self-direction of muscular energy — the nature of 
the mechanism by which the animal may walk to 
the east or west at will. That muscles are in pairs 
is an anatomical fact, and that the one contracts while 
the other relaxes is a physiological fact, and that 
the mind somehow controls this muscular activity at 
will is a psychologic fact, and the whole thing is 
rendered simple and clear by the doctrine that 
anabolism in one muscle and catabolism in its 
opponent are each under the control of mind. But 
the mind of the cortex does not consciously choose 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 85 

the association of the several particles involved in 
metabolism. The affinity which is involved in 
metabolism must be the choice of the particles 
themselves, in obedience to commands issued by the 
organism of unicellular particles of which the body 
is composed, these ultimately acting in obedience to 
the command of the cortical consciousness. Metab- 
olism is controlled by the central mind in some 
manner or other. Believing this we must infer that 
the particles of the muscles are conscious as units in 
a hierarchy of organs which at the other pole is the 
cortical consciousness. Here we first reach the 
facts the explanation of which seems to require 
the hypothesis that consciousness primarily inheres 
in the ultimate particle. If this hypothesis is 
accepted, we have the fundamental doctrine of 
psychology. 

Science has demonstrated that motion cannot be 
created or destroyed. Mind, therefore, cannot 
create motion but only direct it. Mind directs the 
motion of the body by directing the motion of the 
organs of locomotion, and these are directed by the 
device of opposing muscles — the one being contracted 
and the other relaxed. So the choice of the animal 
is delegated to the choice of the organ, and the choice 
of the organ is delegated to the choice of the mus- 
cles. The muscles, therefore, must have the power 
of choice, which it also delegates to molecules. 
Therefore the molecules must have choice. We 
know that every unicellular organism of the blood is 
an independent animate being, with consciousness 
and choice. These independent animate beings are 
incorporated in the tissues of the animal having 
self-activity. We must therefore suppose that they 



86 TRUTH AND ERROR 

retain their choice and consciousness, and the same 
choice seems to be exercised by every particle of 
the molecule ; if so, animate existence as conscious- 
ness and choice is universal in every particle of 
matter. 

The human body is a hierarchy of conscious bodies. 
In this hierarchy the lower members are controlled 
by the higher members. The lowest members are 
ultimate particles and the highest member is the 
cortical body. Now the cortical body controls all 
the others in the hierarchy and it ought to receive 
intelligence from all the others, for the conscious- 
ness of the particle is transmitted to the cortex, and 
the will of the cortex is transmitted to the cortical 
body, but only those which require regulation by it. 
Not all of the judgments of the cortical body, but only 
those of the particles which need regulation in a 
particular part, are transmitted to special particles. 
The government of the human body in all its 
hierarchy of bodies is strictly analogous to the gov- 
ernment of a nation where the governing body of 
the nation is not cognizant of all which the individ- 
uals do, but it receives intelligence about the way 
they do in respect to those things which it attempts 
to control and it controls the individual only in those 
actions which are necessary to the welfare of the 
body politic. Thus the cognition and volition of the 
controlling body is but partial. There is local con- 
sciousness and local self-government. We will find 
some confirmation of this doctrine as we proceed, 
but its final elaboration will be more fully made in a 
subsequent work. Stated in our own terms, this 
is the doctrine of modern scientific physiology and 
psychology. 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 87 

V 

As in the geonomic realm so here in the animate 
realm there are processes. As in the phytonic realm 
so in this there are generations; now causation 
appears under a new aspect as development. The 
animal is composed of organs and these organs 
develop as they are exercised under the stimulus of 
mind, for while they are cooperative one part of a 
system may be developed at the expense of another, 
so that one organ in a congeries of organs may have 
great development while another organ in the same 
congeries may be neglected and ultimately in a series 
of generations may become atrophied. There is a 
law which finds its chief expression in this realm 
where one organ of the same system may be 
developed, while another may be atrophied. This 
may be stated as follows: progress in unification in 
organs of the same function is progress in rank. 
There is another law, the correlative of this ; it is that 
the differentiation of functions with distinct organs 
is progress in rank. 

The mechanical causes of force, form, and kind 
are conditions that are genetic, while the conditions 
of conception are teleologic. The teleologic condi- 
tions are concomitant with the genetic conditions. 

VI 

It seems probable that every particle of matter has 
consciousness and choice; certain it is that every 
particle of animate matter has these properties. In 
the animal body all of the particles cooperate and 
for this purpose a special nervous system is provided. 
In this system there is a congeries of cells, whose 



88 TRUTH AND ERROR 

function is conception, connected by another con- 
geries whose function is association. The conceiv- 
ing cells are ganglia, the associating cells are 
medullary or fibrous. A group of such gray cells is 
connected with other groups by white fibers, and 
finally all of the ganglia are connected with all other 
animate cells of the individual by fibers. Thus the 
nervous system is a congeries of ganglionic organs, 
connected with and presiding over the other systems 
of organs. The fibers are connecting lines between 
the outer systems of organs and the special ganglia 
of the organs. These ganglia are grouped in the 
hierarchy of nervous organs by intervening fibrous 
nerves until they reach the master ganglion of the 
brain, which is the cortex. There is a peculiarity 
of the nervous system in the relation between the 
cells of the ganglia and the fibers of the connecting 
nerves, in that the fascicles of fibers are not struc- 
turally continuous with the ganglionic cells. Thus 
when a feeling starts in the end organ and is pro- 
duced by its activity, it is carried along the fibers 
through the hierarchy of ganglia to the central 
cortex; the intervening ganglia may continue its 
transmission to the cortex or, as it seems, may inhibit 
it; or when, as in a dream, the system is relaxed, the 
impulse may go astray among the cells of a ganglion, 
and may be transmitted by unwonted fibers to the 
cortex at some incongruous point, for the cells of the 
ganglion constitute a shunting or directive apparatus 
by which impulses from one region are directed to 
others throughout the system. Now all of the met- 
abolic, circulatory, motor, and reproductive organs 
are themselves organs for the initiation of impulses 
to the nervous system, and the ganglia of this nervous 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 89 

system, especially the cortex, are organs for the 
initiation of impulses that are conducted by the 
fibrous nerves to the metabolic, circulatory, motor, 
and reproductive organs. A ganglion seems to have 
the power to distribute these impulses to such point 
in the peripheral organs as they may select, but the 
central ganglion or cortex cannot directly reach the 
peripheral organ, but only through the intermediate 
ganglia in the hierarchy. An impulse emanating in 
the cortex is delivered to its nearest ganglion in the 
line in which it should go; this ganglion in turn 
directs it to another or to any group of end organs. 
Thus all of the systems of congeries of organs of 
which the body is composed are put in relation to 
the cortex. An impulse which originates in any 
organ of the complex system when transmitted to a 
ganglion I call a feeling impression. 

Having seen the nature of the apparatus by which 
the other organs are put into communication with 
the ganglionic organs, and finally with the cortex 
through feeling impressions, it becomes necessary to 
exhibit the apparatus of the nervous organism which 
exists to connect the cortex and subordinate gan- 
glia with the world external to the periphery of 
the body. 

This apparatus consists in the sense organs and 
the fibrous nerves by which they are connected with 
the cortex. For the sense of taste and smell, which 
are metabolic, we have two organs that are not very 
well differentiated in structure, nor are they well 
differentiated in function, although they seem to be 
more thoroughly differentiated by the nature of the 
stimuli; for taste the object must be reduced to the 
fluid state, and for smell it must be reduced to the 



90 TRUTH AND ERROR 

vapor state. Both of these organs have their nervous 
bodies connected by fibers with the central ganglia. 
The mouth and the nose are simple organs for the ac- 
cumulation of sense stimuli, single in the one case and 
partially double in the other, but the nervous 
organs to which they lead and which they unify are 
many. 

In the skin-covering of the body there are many 
tactual organs, which are unified through the con- 
tinuity of the skin itself, yet they seem to be dispa- 
rate not only in organ but in function. They are 
also connected with the cortex, but through ancil- 
lary ganglia, which are themselves ancillary brains. 
Touch is the primary organ of form. 

There also seem to be organs of pressure either 
in the skin or immediately beneath it, though they 
have not been clearly made out. The fibers of the 
muscles themselves may be the end organs of 
the motor system, and it may be that nerve fibers 
everywhere accompany muscular fibers. Thus we 
know that the motor system is connected usually 
through ancillary ganglia with the cortex. The end 
organs of this system, be they the muscles themselves 
or specialized parts of them, are the organs for con- 
veying to the cortex impressions of muscular force. 

For the sense of hearing there are two organs for 
gathering the impulses which are propagated through 
the atmosphere, but in each there are many nerve 
organs. They are also connected with the cortex by 
their fibers. The semicircular canals seem in man 
to convey only feelings, but in aquatic animals it is 
probable that they are true sense organs, and convey 
sense impressions brought to them through the 
medium of the water. The ear is the primordial or 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 91 

fundamental sense by which time is conveyed to 
the cortex. 

The eye is the organ for conveying sense impres- 
sions that are received from objects at a distance 
through the medium of the ether. Primarily or 
fundamentally it is the organ by which the conscious 
movements of other bodies are conveyed to the cor- 
tex. 

In man and probably in many of the lower animals 
all of these senses are highly vicarious. This is pre- 
eminently the case with the eye. This organ, by 
reason of its self -activity, is peculiarly adapted to a 
great variety of vicarious functions, for it can adjust 
itself to direction through its muscles or by accommo- 
dation to distances and degrees of light. The faculty 
by which the eye moves and accommodates itself, 
together with the rapid vibration of ether particles, 
renders it possible to receive many sense impressions 
which come to it with a speed which is for all prac- 
tical purposes instantaneous. For these reasons and 
for others that hereafter will be set forth, the eye is 
a universal organ of sense impression. 

The ear also is highly adapted to vicarious func- 
tions, the air being the medium whose vibrations are 
rapid, though to a less degree than those of the ether. 
In the early history of mankind, when language was 
chiefly oral speech, the ear was rapidly developed in 
vicarious functions, especially in the function of con- 
veying the properties of mind observed in other 
human beings, for by this organ men learn that other 
human beings have ideas and emotions like their own. 

The motor sense also seems capable of becoming 
highly vicarious, for those persons who are deprived 
of sight and hearing can yet through the aid of this 



92 TRUTH AND ERROR 

sense obtain a knowledge of the world which they 
can neither see nor hear ; and what is more wonder- 
ful still, they can yet gain a knowledge of the ideas 
and emotions of their fellow men. The other senses 
in a still lower degree are vicarious. 

It will be seen that I do not consider the tempera- 
ture feeling to be a sense or to have sense organs. 
The temperature feeling seems to be the feeling of 
the functions of the circulatory system in degrees 
when it partially congeals the blood, or increases its 
fluidity, and is a feeling like that of a burn when it 
injures the skin. The distinction which is made 
between a feeling impression and sense impression 
is fundamental, and must be considered when here- 
after the nature of cognition is discussed. 

VII 

Essentials are comprehended in the same particle, 
and are thus concomitant, and related in different 
particles, and are thus correlative. As particle is 
related to particle, so unit is related to unit, extension 
to extension, speed to speed, and persistence to per- 
sistence. Now we have discovered another property 
in bodies, which we have found in inanimate bodies 
as affinity or choice, and in animate bodies as con- 
sciousness and choice. There can be no choice with- 
out consciousness. Consciousness is to choice what 
unity is to plurality, what extension is to position, 
what speed is to path, and what persistence is to 
change ; that is, consciousness is the absolute, choice 
is the relative. 

Thus for every absolute we find a relative; for 
every constant a variable. Unity as an absolute has 
plurality for its relative; extension as an absolute 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 93 

has position for its relative ; speed as an absolute has 
path as its relative ; persistence as an absolute has 
change for its relative, and consciousness as an abso- 
lute has choice for its relative. 

Unity and plurality constitute number, the unity 
being absolute and constant, while plurality is 
related and variable; this is the fundamental defi- 
nition of number. 

Space is composed of extension and position, the 
extension being absolute and constant, the position 
relative and variable. This is the fundamental 
definition of space. 

Motion is speed and path, the speed being absolute 
and constant, the change relative and variable ; this 
is the fundamental definition of motion. 

Time is persistence and change, the persistence 
being absolute and constant, the change relative and 
variable ; this is the fundamental definition of time. 

Judgment is consciousness and choice, the con- 
sciousness being absolute and the choice relative; 
this is the fundamental definition of judgment. 

Let us further consider these properties to bring 
out another phase of the subject. Unity is the sub- 
strate, foundation, ground or condition of plurality, 
for without units there can be no pluralities. Unity, 
therefore, is independent of plurality, but plurality 
is dependent on unity. There are many particles 
that have extension or space occupancy; thus there 
are many positions. Extension is the substrate, 
foundation or ground of position, for the several 
positions depend on the several units having exten- 
sions that exclude one another in the occupancy of 
space. Speed is the substrate, foundation, or ground 
of path, for every speed produces a path, or in other 



94 TRUTH AND ERROR 

terms, every path is dependent on a speed. Every 
unit having extension and speed has persistent 
duration ; but as these units change in position and 
also change in trajectory, they could not change if 
there were not something that persisted through 
change. Persistence, therefore, is the substrate, 
foundation or ground of change. Consciousness is 
the substrate or ground of choice, for if there is 
no consciousness there can be no choice. Thus 
it is that in every one of the properties, there is a 
substrate or a support and that which is supported, 
or, in other terms, a ground and that which is 
grounded, or in still other terms, a foundation and 
that which is founded, and finally an independent 
and a dependent. This is but another way of say- 
ing that in every one of the properties there is a sub- 
strate and a dependent. The substrates are unity, 
dimension, speed, persistence and consciousness ; the 
dependents are plurality, position, path, change, and 
choice. 

It will be seen that we can call a particle a unit or 
we may call it an extension, or a speed, or a persist- 
ence, or a consciousness, and these several names 
refer to the same particle because it has the five con- 
comitant essentials. 

In the foregoing presentation the nature of the 
properties has been deduced from knowledge, with 
which every intelligent person is possessed, and 
which rests upon the experience of the race. No 
recondite induction or deduction has been necessary, 
but only the statement of known facts in proper 
sequence has been required to understand the nature 
of the five properties, except in the case of judgment, 
which is made analogous by hypothesis. 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 95 

This is the result at which we have arrived in the 
foregoing discussion. 

One particle by itself has unity, extension, motion, 
persistence, and if animate, judgment; but by reason 
of others it has plurality, position, path, change and 
choice. What it has by itself we call its essential 
concomitants; what it has by reason of others we call 
its relations. Concomitants with relations we call 
properties, and as the essentials are concomitant the 
properties are concomitant; hence the number can- 
not be absorbed by one, the space by a second, the 
motion by a third, the time by a fourth, and the 
judgment by a fifth. Properties, then, are concom- 
itant and relational. 

The theory of hylozoism, which I have presented 
in this chapter, is very old, and has had many illus- 
trious champions. When alchemy was developed 
into chemistiy a great impetus was given to it. The 
discovery by Darwin and the masterly advocacy of 
evolution by Spencer, through which the doctrine of 
the survival of the fittest was established, for a time 
gave a decided check to the theory. The blow 
struck by Spencer was especially efficient, for Spencer 
resolved all of the properties into force with a clear- 
ness which left no room to doubt his meaning. 

A host of scientific men following Darwin and 
accepting the doctrine of the survival of the fittest 
have found it to be inadequate as a single theory of 
evolution. There are other laws, especially one 
expounded by Lamarck. I myself have set forth a 
new doctrine of evolution as that of culture, and in a 
subsequent chapter of this work I shall set forth the 
doctrine of evolution in which I shall attempt to 
prove that the fundamental law of evolution is the 



96 TRUTH AND ERROR 

law of affinity by which bodies are incorporated, 
and hence that evolution is primarily telic. 

In the five fundamental realms of nature, ethereal 
particles are numerically related and numbers are 
organized. Stellar particles are related in numbers 
and forms, and forms are organized. In geonomic 
bodies forces as well as forms and kinds are organ- 
ized. In plants causations are organized as genera- 
tions as well as forces and forms and kinds. In 
animals concepts are organized as well as causations, 
forces, forms and kinds. In every one of these sys- 
tems there is a special differentiation and integration 
of organs ; so the entire body is organized in a hier- 
archy of organs. This may be stated in another way. 
In ethereal bodies, which are probably ultimate par- 
ticles themselves, numbers are organized. In the 
stars numbers and spaces are organized. In the 
geonomic bodies numbers, spaces, and motions are 
organized. In plants numbers, spaces, motions and 
times are organized. In animals numbers, spaces, 
motions, times, and judgments are organized. Or 
again, it may be stated in another way. In ethereal 
bodies units are organized. In stellar bodies units 
and extensions are organized. In geonomic bodies 
units, extensions and speeds are organized. In 
plants units, extensions, speeds and persistences are 
organized. In animals units, extensions, speeds, 
persistences and the consciousness of many particles 
are organized. While every particle in the universe 
has consciousness and choice and hence judgment, 
it is only in animals that we find judgments 
organized as concepts. Only animals have reason. 

The various doctrines of hylozoism heretofore 
presented in the history of philosophy, conscious- 



PRINCIPLES OR PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS 97 

ness and reason have been confounded. The terms 
mind and reason are nearly synonymous. Reason- 
ing is a process, as we shall hereafter show, and mind 
is that which reasons. Thus these two terms refer 
to the same thing, the one when it is considered as 
a process of an organism, the other considering it 
as an organism. Reason is a function of animal 
organism. Every particle has consciousness, only 
animals have reason. 



CHAPTER VIII 

QUALITIES 

There is another class of relations which here 
require careful consideration. They will be called 
qualities. Sometimes the words property and quality 
have been considered synonymous, while the words 
quality and class or category are often used as syn- 
onyms. Perhaps the distinction now made between 
properties and qualities has never been set forth. 
I think that the foregoing chapters will have made 
clear to the reader the sense in which the term prop- 
erty has been used. These properties in the five 
realms of nature, namely, the ether, the stars, the 
rocks, the plants, and the animals, all subserve 
human ends or purposes, which may be considered 
as good or evil. In this manner qualities arise, while 
terms denoting these qualities are found in all 
languages. These quality terms have the charac- 
teristic of being more or less vague, in that they may 
instantly change with the point of view. Some 
illustrations will be given to make this distinction 
plain. Number is a property. Here are five apples 
and the number cannot be changed without adding 
or substracting therefrom, but the five apples may 
be few or many by a change in the point of view. 
Five apples in a tray at a dinner board where twelve 
persons are sitting are few, but upon the plate of one 
of the guests are many. Thus it is that a number 
may become few or many by some circumstance or 
purpose in view. Few are thus qualities, while five 



QUALITIES 99 

is a property. A barrel of apples on a table would 
be many or very many ; in the cellar plenty ; in the 
warehouse when the steamer is seeking a cargo it 
would be few, and the merchant would not be con- 
sidered untruthful if by a figure of speech he affirmed 
that he had none. 

Again, extension and form are properties, but they 
may easily become qualities where there is some 
purpose in view. A pin may be large or small in 
relation to the hole which it is to fill in the timbers 
of a house ; the same pin may be too large for one 
purpose and too small for another. The watchmaker 
uses a pin so small that it can be seen only with 
care, and yet it may be large or too large for the 
purpose intended. A hill in the Park Mountains 
would be called a mountain in the Catskills, and 
a mountain in the Park would be called a hill in the 
Himalayas. Thus properties are transformed into 
qualities by ideal circumstances. 

The railway train is fast to the man who is driving 
an ox-team, but the train is slow to the mother who 
is on her way to the death-bed of her child. An old 
man may say at one moment that the day is long, 
and in the next that life is short. To the laborer 
who is bent on his task the hum of the machinery is 
scarcely heard, but on his couch at night the tick of 
his clock is loud. The razor is beautiful and good 
in the hand of the skilful barber, but it is ugly and 
dangerous in the hands of an assassin ; thus proper- 
ties are transmuted into qualities by human ideas. 
Red is beautiful in the rose, ugly in the spot of 
blood on the floor. The sheen of sable in the ousel 
is beautiful, but the sheen of sable on the carrion- 
loving buzzard is ugly. If all serpents were harm- 



IOO TRUTH AND ERROR 

less, gentle and intelligent, their lithe forms and 
gliding motions would be beautiful. If robins were 
poisonous their red breasts would be symbols of 
horror. If the red lightning and the crimson cloud 
could change relations to men's ideas of good and 
evil, the one as the harbinger of summer rain and 
the other as a visit of death, the lightning would be 
a thing of beauty and the cloud a terror. 

The coming of the rain may be welcomed by the 
husbandman who has planted his field of corn; it 
may be unwelcome to the belated traveler. Time is 
long and weary to the invalid on the couch of pain ; 
time is short and joyous to the child in the park. 

It is thus that properties become qualities through 
our ideals, through the purposes which we have in 
view. There is no difficulty in distinguishing 
between qualities and properties as they have here 
been defined. Properties are not qualities and quali- 
ties are not properties, but qualities are founded 
upon properties. Properties are qualities when they 
are considered teleologically. It is right, therefore, 
to say that properties are real in the sense that they 
are grounded on matter and that qualities are ideal 
in the sense that they are dependent for their exist- 
ence upon the mind. When we reflect upon these 
facts nothing can be more simple. The distinction 
can be discovered without difficulty and it would 
seem that there need be no confusion between prop- 
erties and qualities as here defined. To affirm prop- 
erties is to affirm inseparable concomitants of matter, 
but to affirm qualities is to affirm things that change 
with the point of view. I see a man suddenly push 
another upon the street, and think it rude, and am 
indignant. The next moment I see that he saved 



QUALITIES IOI 

him from falling into a pit, and in an instant the 
quality of the act is changed, and I call it wise and 
kind, while the activity as property remains the 
same. 

From the days of Aristotle to the last book of 
philosophy, substance and the properties of which 
it is composed, bodies as compounded substance and 
hence compounded properties, relations and com- 
pounded relations, qualities, and compounded quali- 
ties all have been under discussion, and attempts 
have been made to define them. 

These distinctions, which seem simple and are 
simple when understood, and maybe understood by 
every intelligent man, have led to tomes and libraries 
of discussion and disputation not always friendly 
and charitable. There are those who affirm that 
qualities and properties are all one as ideal ; there 
are those who affirm that qualities and properties 
are all one as real or material. And thus we have an 
idealistic philosophy and a materialistic philosophy. 
A few idealists have gone so far as to affirm that not 
only qualities but properties, bodies and relations 
are ideal ; that there is no material or real world 
which exists except as it is created by the mind and 
that all these things exist only in mind. 

The difference between qualities and properties 
was vaguely seen by Aristotle, but seems to have 
been unrecognized by Plato. In modern times we 
find Locke, with a clearness never before exhibited, 
giving the distinction between properties and quali- 
ties, though he called them all qualities, but the 
names used are of little moment. He divided quali- 
ties into primary and secondary; what are here 
called properties he called secondary qualities. But 



102 TRUTH AND ERROR 

at his time the nature of force was unknown and the 
laws of evolution or time were undiscovered and 
many of the properties of force and change were 
relegated to his second class and confounded with 
what are here called qualities. Then he added a 
third class which he called powers ; so the properties 
of force were divided between secondary qualities 
and powers. Dropping his term as primary and 
secondary qualities, and using the terms properties 
and qualities in their stead, it is proposed briefly to 
explain the errors into which Locke fell. In his 
time his errors were excusable ; at the present time 
they are inexcusable. All of this can now be set 
forth and the truth demonstrated as simply and 
clearly as a proposition in Euclid, and it must be 
understood if modern science is to be understood, 
for upon these simple, self-evident propositions all 
modern science is founded. Since Locke all later 
writers, so far as my reading extends, instead of clear- 
ing away Locke's errors have piled up a mountain of 
new fallacies. To reduce these questions to their 
simple elements it becomes necessary to go back to 
Locke. 

The correlation of forces which has its ground in 
the persistence of motion was unknown in Locke's 
time, though Locke himself affirmed it. In his dis- 
cussion he clearly set forth that numbers are primary 
qualities — i. e. , properties ; but he does not see that 
kinds are derived from number and also are prop- 
erties. He clearly explains that extension and all 
the properties of form derived therefrom are prop- 
erties. He clearly sees that motions are properties, 
but he does not see the relation between motions 
and forces, so he places some of the forces in the 



QUALITIES 103 

second class of qualities and thus includes them in 
what we call qualities, while others he includes 
among powers. Thus classes, forces and durations 
were practically left in the second class and among 
powers. The nature of the first class he clearly- 
understood and explained, and finally he refers the 
second class of qualities and powers also to a founda- 
tion or substrate in qualities of the first class, or prop- 
erties. His second class of qualities he included 
with pains and pleasures, which are true qualities. 
He clearly saw that good and evil, however expressed 
as pleasures, satisfactions, joys and delights, or as 
pains, discomforts, dangers and horrors, formed 
another class of attributes. But with them he 
grouped classes, though he does not make this plain; 
but he does make it plain that he grouped many forces 
and many changes in his second class of qualities. 

Since Locke's time this classification has been 
modified mainly in the direction of his errors. More 
and more have properties been considered as quali- 
ties, and a school of idealists has sprung up who hold 
that all properties are qualities in the sense in which 
these terms are here used. At the same time a 
school of realists has sprung up who hold that there 
are no qualities, but only properties, as these terms 
are here used. By what course of reasoning did 
Locke lapse into error? On carefully examining 
this matter it will be seen that while he did not dis- 
cuss the whole question fully and left much unsaid 
that should have been said, he clearly understood his 
position ; yet it will be seen that he stumbles over 
those properties of force that are revealed to us 
through the senses of seeing, hearing, and smelling. 
He clearly saw that the bodies revealed to us 



104 TRUTH AND ERROR 

through these senses do not act directly as bodies 
upon the self, but in the case of seeing and 
hearing through media and in the case of smelling 
through the action of minute particles dissevered 
from the bodies. At least all this may be justly 
gathered from his statement, though he is not always 
clear upon these points. It is fair to Locke to credit 
him with this degree of insight into the truth. He 
believed that in seeing there must be a medium 
between the body perceived and the perceiving mind, 
but he did not clearly understand it as the universal 
ether. In his time the existence of the universal 
ether was a doubtful doctrine in the history of 
science. Locke denied the validity of the actio in dis- 
tans in his first publications, and he never retracted, 
but under the influence of the supposed opinions 
of Newton in regard to the attraction of gravity, 
Locke affirmed that he was not prepared to assert 
that God could not do things in any way he pleased. 
Had he known what we now know, that Newton used 
the term attraction in a metaphoric sense, and no 
more believed in actio in distans than did Locke 
himself, he would not have made this apparent con- 
cession to the opinions of Newton. 

It still remains, however, that Locke believed 
and taught that certain properties of force (espe- 
cially those manifesting themselves to the senses 
above mentioned) and many properties of change 
are qualities and do not exist as properties or 
primary qualities. Fallacies of force and change 
were still current in his time, for the .correla- 
tion of forces through the persistence of motion 
was unknown and untaught, and the fallacies of 
evolution were yet to be dispelled. This state of 



QUALITIES 105 

things has passed away, and no man who now under- 
stands light or heat will call it a quality in the sense 
in which the term is here used, but a property 
inherent in matter itself. At first view it seems 
strange that Locke fell into this error in the case of 
sound, but it must be remembered that in his time 
the kinetics of gas was unknown, and although Locke 
and his predecessors for two thousand years had 
understood that sound was a mode of motion, yet it 
was very vaguely or inadequately explained. 

Locke's contemporaries and successors have but 
added to the confusion in which the subject was left 
by himself. Spencer takes up this subject for discus- 
sion in three chapters of his Psychology under the sub- 
ject of static, dynamic, and statico-dynamic attributes. 
We first note that he replaced Locke's term of quali- 
ties by another, namely, attributes. He did not dis- 
cuss Locke's classification, but that of Hamilton, 
which is much more vague than that of Locke, but 
Hamilton, like others, had introduced a third class 
between the primary and the secondary, which was 
called secundo-primary. Spencer adopted this three- 
fold classification, but used the terms static, dynamic, 
and statico-dynamic. It will be remembered that 
Spencer was a Monist, and believed that the primor- 
dial unity is based on dynamics or reified force. With 
him all the properties, and in them he included 
qualities, manifest only the primordial force. This 
was his first error. His second error .was to neglect 
number and to consider class as classification, or a 
process of the mind, and not a property of bodies 
discovered by the mind. Then he presented his 
two classes, one based on dynamics and the other 
on statics, but statics is not the other to dynamics, 



106 TRUTH AND ERROR 

but the other to change ; state and change are the 
reciprocals of time. The reciprocals of force are 
action and passion or action and reaction. You may- 
read Spencer on this subject with great care many- 
times, as I have, and you will see that he himself is 
vaguely conscious of this illogical proceeding and 
affirms that he uses the term statics with an especial 
meaning devised for his own purpose; but under 
dynamics he appears to include change, although he 
purports to be the philosopher of evolution, and 
under statics he includes a part of the properties of 
duration and change and a part of the properties of 
number and class and of extension and form. It is 
thus that the confusion introduced by Locke in his 
discussion, due to the ignorance of his time, was still 
further increased by Spencer, and his three chapters 
on the attributes of matter constitute a monument 
of errors. An erroneous classification is the bane of 
science, for it throws phenomena into false relations 
and makes that which is simple appear to be complex, 
difficult, profound and even unknowable, as Spencer 
believed. 

Locke's 4< Essay" introduced a new theme into 
philosophy, which at last comes down to us in the 
form of epistomology. It seeks to discuss the activi- 
ties of mind and the certitudes of its conclusions. 
Berkeley seized upon Locke's explanation of vision 
and amplified it. Neither Locke nor Berkeley clearly 
saw that the properties of bodies discovered by the 
several senses are integrated by conception in such 
a manner that one sense impression becomes a sym- 
bol or mark of all the properties belonging to the 
body which are known to the mind; that a light 
impression, a sound impression, a taste impression 



QUALITIES I07 

or a smelling impression are by conception trans- 
formed into symbols of the body perceived with all 
its properties. Failing to understand this in its 
full significance, and science not having explained 
the nature of light, heat and other forces, all forces 
were by Berkeley considered to be qualities as the 
term is here used, and then he made a further step, 
that all properties are but qualities, and have their 
existence only in the mind. Thus it was that 
Berkeley robbed us of the beautiful world, but 
with a literary skill that is alluring; he was not 
a vulgar highwayman crying, "Stand and deliver!" 
but a knight of the green wood who courteously 
invoked our assistance in yielding to him our 
treasures. 

Hume took up the same problem and with sturdy 
blows destroyed the world, and reason was crushed 
in its fall. Then in Germany Kant, Schelling, Fichte 
and Hegel essayed to solve these problems; Kant 
leaving behind a monument of criticism erected into 
antinomies where truth and certitude are lost. 
Fichte carried the whole subject to its logical con- 
clusion by reducing it to an absurdity. It was a 
simple demonstration the meaning of which he never 
knew, dying in a mist of reification. Hegel, see- 
ing the contradictions of Kant and Fichte and accept- 
ing their conclusions, developed the most elaborate 
and artificial philosophy ever presented in the 
history of human thought — a philosophy of contradic- 
tion, a scheme of the negative by which it was 
attempted to show that words are divine, but the 
world is finite and contradictory, and that every 
proposition affirmed of the world contains within 
itself its own contradiction, and that words must be 



108 TRUTH AND ERROR 

believed and that sensation, perception, understand- 
ing, and reflection create phantasms. 

So these problems have come down to us. In the 
meantime an army of scientific men have been at 
work clearing away the fallacies of imperfect reason 
by designed and skilful investigation. Mysterious 
forces have been resolved into their simple elements 
as the motion of matter in collision, and the mutagen- 
eses of the world have been resolved, and the laws 
of evolution formulated, and the subject is once 
more taken up by Spencer with a literary skill equal 
to that of Berkeley or Plato, and with the powers of 
an advocate never excelled. The attributes or things 
which may be attributed to an object are properties 
and qualities. It was the distinction between prop- 
erties and qualities that the Greeks sought to 
characterize as noumena and phenomena. Noumena 
are the properties of bodies as they are in them- 
selves, while phenomena are the qualities of bodies 
and the fallacies which we entertain concerning them. 
But when in later times noumena were held to be 
occult or mysterious substrates, then science adopted 
the term phenomena as synonymous with properties. 

Qualities give rise to emotions, for qualities are 
good and evil. All properties may be considered as 
good or evil in relation to man's wants. The emo- 
tions are founded upon the cognition of good and 
evil. We are not in this volume to set forth the 
good and evil of environment, nor their cognition as 
emotions. All of this subject must be treated in a 
subsequent volume. In this volume we are endeavor- 
ing to explain, first, what are properties and bodies, 
and how they are cognized. This brief reference 
to the cognition of qualities must here suffice. 



CHAPTER IX 



CLASSIFICATION 



The science of number is natural, for units and 
pluralities are found in nature, but measure is con- 
ventional, for conventional units of measure are 
used in order that undiscovered numbers may be 
represented by their equivalents in computation, for 
while we may not be able to discover the number of 
natural units in a body we may be able to measure 
its form in conventional units of extension, and for 
some purposes of computation these units serve the 
desired purpose. 

There are other computations which are not prop- 
erly subserved by the measurement of form. Here 
we measure the force which the body exerts through 
the action of gravity and determine its mass in units 
of weight, and these mass units serve the same pur- 
pose in our computations that higher units of num- 
ber would serve if we were able to count the parti- 
cles. Thus the science of number is natural, but the 
device of measure is conventional. It serves a useful 
purpose in that it enables us to represent by num- 
bers certain facts about bodies which we are not able 
to discover as natural numbers by reason of their 
multiplicity and minuteness ; so we assume that one 
concomitant property represents the others. This 
we measure. We do not search with the microscope 
for atoms and count them, but we consider their 
forms as extensions or their forces as masses and 

reason about the artificial numbers derived there- 

109 



110 TRUTH AND ERROR 

from by measurement with the same degree of 
certainty that we would have if we should actually 
count the particles. Thus measure is devised in 
order that we may consider numbers when the actual 
numbers are concealed from observation. That 
every property is concomitant with all others is thus 
assumed as the fundamental doctrine of mathematics 
where quantitative reasoning is held to be exact and 
irrefragable. All this depends upon the law that 
the essentials are persistent in the particle. 

While measure is thus conventional there is still 
another conventional usage in the science of mathe- 
matics. In natural units bodies are the higher 
units of particles, the particle and the body are units 
of different orders, and the different orders of units 
in nature are thus coextensive with all the bodies of 
the universe. Thus there is an infinite system of 
orders of numbers; but man devises a numerical 
system where a definite plurality is considered as a 
higher unity, and such a system serves him a valu- 
able purpose as a labor-saving device for the mental 
faculties. He cannot stretch his mind to the con- 
cepts of natural units of particles in natural higher 
units of bodies, but he creates a representative sys- 
tem, so that the multiplicities of nature, which are 
infinite, may be representatively considered by the 
finite mind. 

In conventional number the units of different 
orders are compounded symmetrically in constant 
ratios. Early in the history of language, while it 
was largely gesture speech, the fingers of one or 
both hands or the fingers and toes were used as an 
abacus by which numbers were told off ; and this led 
to a habit which has continued and developed so 



CLASSIFICATION III 

that in the various languages of the world it is found 
that the number five, the number ten or the number 
twenty has been used as the normal ratio between 
conventional orders. Of the three methods the 
decimal has been retained in civilization as the one 
used in enumeration, computation and notation. By 
this device a plurality of units are arranged in a 
system of orders, ten units constituting the first 
order, ten of these the second, etc. In this manner 
numbers are classified as kinds in series for the 
purpose of convenient counting. Counting is a 
compound process of two coordinate elements; one 
determines the kind, the other the series, and 
determination of kind logically precedes enumera- 
tion. The kind must first be determined and then 
seriated. The kinds may be natural or conventional, 
one or both, and the series may be natural or 
conventional, one or both. When we count horses 
in the field we count a natural kind, but we seriate 
only those in the field as a conventional series. We 
must not confound horses with stumps if we are to 
get a valid sum. We may place stones, blocks of 
wood and fragments of paper as marks of sites 
where trees are to be planted, but we classify them 
not as stones, blocks of wood, and fragments of 
paper, but as marks. In this case the kinds are 
conventional. Conventional counting and classifica- 
tion differ in this respect only that in counting the 
series is conventional, while in classification the 
series is natural. In counting the all of the kind is 
the all of our purpose; in classification the all is 
the all of nature. Then we must remember that in 
mathematics, number is taken as the representative 
of the other concomitant properties of quantity and 



112 TRUTH AND ERROR 

that they are reduced to number by measurement, 
while in classification kinds are used to represent 
the other properties and they are reduced to 
kinds by logical convention. While in conventional 
counting we consider kinds in series, so in classifying 
the bodies and properties of nature we are com- 
pelled to consider kinds in series. 

It was more than a chance that produced the 
decimal system, for the universe is pentalogic, as all 
of the fundamental series discovered in nature are 
pentalogic by reason of the five concomitant proper- 
ties. The origin of the decimal system was the 
recognition by primitive man of the reciprocal 
pentalogic systems involved in the two hands of the 
human body, and the pentalogic properties are 
always in pairs. While the properties are five, they 
are manifested in reciprocal pairs. 

The universe is not an endless series of infinitesi- 
mal variables, but it is a universe of divergent series 
which spring from an ascending series as branches 
spring from a trunk. In the branches the extreme 
variation appears in the extremities of the divergent 
branches, but the branches are not linked to one 
another by these peripheral extremities but by 
their trunk connections, and the grand advance 
in nature is made as an ascending series as by a 
trunk. 

When we study a group of plants or animals that 
are intimately related, as, for example, the members 
of an order, and compare them with the members of 
another order, the two orders are found related not 
by their highest members but by their lowest. It is 
thus that two branches of phytonomic or zoonomic 
species are found related to each other by discover- 



CLASSIFICATION 113 

ing the synthetic form which belonged to the 
ascending or trunk series. 

Synthetic forms are often extirpated by time, and 
to a large extent living species are found in well- 
demarcated groups, this demarcation being the 
clearer by reason of the extirpation of the synthetic 
types of the trunk, while the branch groups diver- 
gently elongate until an extreme differentiation is 
found. Sometimes whole branches are extirpated 
and thus are found as fossils. Species multiply by the 
splitting of branches and each new branch consitutes 
a lineal series of individuals which are separated by 
the extirpation of the main branch ; while the main 
branch remains the new branches are held as 
varieties. 

The true method of classification, therefore, is not 
by invention but by discovery. 

The growth of a mineral is a progressive change 
by internal metamorphosis of the molecules. The 
growth of the individual plant is accomplished by 
successive additions of particles, and is thus a serial 
kind, while the growth of the individual in the 
animal is accomplished not only by a constant 
addition of particles, but also by a concomitant 
subtraction of particles ; the individual is doubly a 
serial kind. 

A species is a series of connected individuals 
differing from one another by minute distinctions 
but differing from other species by gaps; such a 
group is the lowest demarcated class. A variety is 
an inchoate species not marked by gaps or discrete 
degrees. Species are further classified in hierarchies, 
when the species becomes one of a series of species. 
The production of a species is nature's method of 



114 TRUTH AND ERROR 

summating- a series, and a production of any higher 
class is still another method of more distinctly 
summating a series of series. Series spring from 
the division of trunks, and may be traced back to 
their origin; classification, then, becomes seriation 
of species in such a manner as to exhibit their origin 
in less differentiated species. 

The kinds of nature considered in the series of 
nature are classes, and these are regrouped in hier- 
archies which are systems of classes. Every science 
of such a grand group of bodies gives rise to a 
special science and thus we have systematic miner- 
alogy, systematic botany and systematic zoology. 

We have seen that the other properties of a particle 
when treated in the science of mathematics require 
conversion into terms of number. Space properties 
are measured by conventional units, and are thus 
reduced to number. Motion or force properties are 
measured in terms of space and these again are also 
expressed in number. Times are measured in terms 
of motion, the motion in terms of space and the 
space reduced to terms of number. It is thus by the 
device of measure that all the other properties of 
matter are reduced to number for the purpose of 
verification. Abstract mathematics is therefore the 
science of number, but applied mathematics is the 
utilization of the laws of mathematics in concrete 
investigation by the device of measure, while chem- 
istry is the science of natural orders of number. 

Now, that which is true in the conventional science 
of mathematics finds its analogue in the natural 
sciences, for all the other properties of bodies are 
reduced to kinds for the purpose of logic. Forms 
are explained as kinds, forces as forms and then as 



CLASSIFICATION 115 

kinds, and finally causations are reduced to forces, 
the forces to forms and these forms to kinds. Thus 
all the natural categories are reduced to kinds, as 
quantitative properties in mathematics are reduced 
to conventional numbers. 

It is for practical reasons that man has reduced all 
other properties to numbers, for as counting can be 
accomplished only by classification, so properties can 
only be treated in mathematics when they are 
reduced to number by measure. Counting serves to 
determine the extent of a conventional group, while 
classification serves to determine the extent of a 
natural group. 

Language is impossible without classification, for 
most words are class words. It therefore becomes 
necessary in the arts, both industrial and linguistic, 
to classify, and mankind through all the history of 
culture has been engaged in classification. But the 
reduction of the other properties to kinds does not 
reduce the whole of science to classification any 
more than the reduction of quantities to number 
reduces all verification to mathematics. There is 
still a logical verification independent of mathemat- 
ical verification, and there are still forms, forces and 
causations to be considered, although for deductive 
logic it is necessary to reduce them to kinds. 

Kinds as species become orders of kinds or classes, 
and are thus multiplied. When kinds are considered 
two correlates are found which cannot be expunged ; 
likeness and unlikeness; and when considered in 
this manner they are classes. A fundamental like- 
ness is discovered in all bodies, for all bodies are 
composed of matter. 

In mathematics bodies are considered in their 



Il6 TRUTH AND ERROR 

quantitative properties, which are number, space, 
motion, time, and, in animate bodies, judgment. 
But in systematic science bodies are treated as 
categories, which are kinds, forms, forces, causa- 
tions, and, in animate bodies, concepts. So, in 
mathematics, while quantitative properties are 
reduced to number, in the natural sciences properties 
are reduced to kinds. The analogy between syste- 
matic science and mathematical science is perfect, 
and both are partly conventional. As it is neces- 
sary to reduce properties to number in order to treat 
them mathematically, so it is necessary to reduce 
properties to kinds in order to treat them logically. 

Bodies are composed of particles, and the elemen- 
tary particles are probably alike. They have been 
reduced to about seventy kinds by chemical analysis. 
Logical analysis reduces them to one kind, and if it 
is valid then they are alike in being composed of one 
substance with like properties. If only the chemical 
analysis is valid, then there are seventy kinds, but 
they are alike in having the same properties, and 
unlike only in having different quantities or propor- 
tions of these properties. All bodies have a funda- 
mental likeness in essentials, and a contingent 
unlikeness in relations. Every physical body is like 
every other physical body in its essentials and unlike 
in its relations. 

The natural classes which exist and those which 
have existed in the past (for the processes of extir- 
pation have always existed in the world) have a 
meaning for us in expressing the agencies which 
have been at work in producing the present stage of 
the world, for every gap represents some event of 
history. Planes of demarcation are thus landmarks 



CLASSIFICATION 117 

of history to guide in research. As bodies have 
appeared and disappeared upon the stage of time 
and the actors changed with every act, a history of 
transcendent interest is involved, for in the dis- 
covery of classes we may restore the history of the 
earth. 

It is seen that classification is the discovery of 
kinds in series. If classification is discovery, classes 
are not conventional but natural. In any stage 
of classification, while yet all of the attributes are 
not known, there may be imperfections in distin- 
guishing kinds in series; the kinds depend upon 
properties, but all the properties may not be known, 
and there may be gaps in our knowledge of the 
series, so that imperfect knowledge is imperfect 
recognition of kinds in series; therefore, classifica- 
tion is always tentative by reason of imperfect 
knowledge. 

When a classification is once established upon a 
logical basis, it need not undergo dissolution to be 
reclassified, for when the germs of classification are 
established on a logical basis it has but to grow with 
increasing knowledge. 

While classification may grow it will always be 
recognized that there is but one system, as the indi- 
vidual is but one individual, though he may grow 
from infancy to maturity. The classification of 
which we speak is genetic, and while but one may 
exist that one may undergo changes on the way to 
perfection. 

The test of classification is this : First, within the 
class all of the individuals must constitute an 
unbroken series, with a beginning and an ending, 
each class demarcated by a gap or discrete degree. 



Il8 TRUTH AND ERROR 

Second, the classes themselves must be seriated with 
the least possible gaps. Third, the series thus pro- 
duced must be traced to convergence. A classifica- 
tion guided by these three laws is valid, when all the 
facts are known, and it is relatively valid when 
these laws are observed in the consideration of the 
known facts. The goal of the science of classifica- 
tion is to discover kinds in series and coordinate 
series of kinds in systems, and systems again in 
series. 

In every perception there is a semblance of 
dichotomous classification of that of which the ego is 
aware, as distinguished from the environment. 
Such a process is involved in the first act of judg- 
ment, and continues to the end, but it is simply 
distinguishing the object of judgment from its 
environment or the world outside of the object. In 
perceiving the horse, the horse is distinguished 
from the rest of the environment, and in order that 
this may be expressed in speech some logicians 
speak of the horse and the non-horse, the tree and 
the non-tree, the house and the non-house. This is 
but a method of naming, but that which is expressed 
is the whole world except that which is included 
under the positive name. By this expression we 
must not conceive that the non-object in any way 
negates the object, nor that the object denies the 
existence of the non-object, but must consider the 
particle "non" as a device in naming. This method 
of naming is accomplished by another method in 
modern biological science when it speaks of the 
individual and the environment. In logic this 
method of naming has led to much confusion, and in 
the logic of Hegel it has led to strange absurdities, 



CLASSIFICATION I 19 

all of which are cleared away when the non-individ- 
ual is called the environment. 

This semblance of dichotomous classification has 
led to many errors, for the habit has been formed and 
philosophers have sometimes diverted the method 
from its use in perception and attempted a dichoto- 
mous classification of the universe. It has rarely 
been suggested as a complete system, but it has been 
practically used by many in this manner, and is still 
so used. Thus, we hear of space and matter as if 
space were not one of the properties of matter ; we 
hear of motion and matter as if motion were not one 
of the properties of matter; we hear of time and 
matter as if time were not one of the properties of 
matter, and we hear of thought and matter as if 
thought were not one of the properties of animate 
matter. Would a sane person speak of the horse 
and head, the horse and body, the horse and legs, 
the horse and tail, and then consider the horse as 
one thing, the head, body, and tail as other things? 
Yet this is the error of those who consider matter as 
one thing and properties as other things. All such 
methods are not only vague and idle, but pernicious 
in that they deform all the concepts involved. 

There is another method of dichotomous classifica- 
tion just as pernicious, exhibited in the attempt to 
classify the properties of matter as dynamic and 
static, which was Spencer's classification. Here 
forces and causations are classified in one group as 
dynamics, and kinds, forms, and thoughts as statics ; 
thus the distinction between causations and force as 
categories are confounded, as also the distinction 
between kinds, forms, and thoughts. For some pur- 
poses of discussion a schematization may be of 



120 TRUTH AND ERROR 

more or less value, but it easily degenerates into 
illogical classification, especially when it becomes 
the foundation of a philosophy. This classification 
is a relic from an earlier stage of philosophy when 
properties were confounded with qualities, and both 
properties and qualities were classified as primary 
and secondary, with sometimes a third class as 
secundo-primary. 

There are only five properties, quantitative and 
categoric. As abstractions they are wholly unlike 
one another, but in the concrete they are identical, 
for every particle of matter and every body com- 
pounded of particles has number, space, motion, 
time, and, if it be an animate body, j udgment. The 
properties, therefore, are phases of the same body, 
and their abstraction must be pentalogic. In the 
science of mathematics the four properties are 
always recognized by every physicist. During the 
latter half of the present century the fifth property has 
been clearly recognized in the new science of psycho- 
physics, which seeks to measure mental operations 
and treat psychology mathematically. In this field 
of modern research a large body of literature is 
already developed. 

Mill, in his work on Logic, groups phenomena in 
a dichotomous scheme as the simultaneous and the 
successive; this is not a logical classification of 
phenomena, but simply a device in naming. Other 
writers divide phenomena into the coexistent and 
sequent, using other terms for Mill's scheme, while 
Mill himself used it as a classification, and thereby 
fell into many errors of logic. Spencer used it also, 
but legitimately. 

Names are developed before classes are logically 



CLASSIFICATION 121 

distinguished, and, although naming involves a 
mode of classification, many devices of naming are 
very illogical methods of classification, but still con- 
venient in schematization ; a schematic name, there- 
fore, must always be distinguished from a classific 
name. 

Often the term physical is used to distinguish cer- 
tain properties from those which are called intel- 
lectual. This is not a logical classification of 
properties, but a convenient schematization which if 
understood as a classification leads to error. It 
always leads to error when the abstract property of 
judgment or conception is held to be a substance, 
and to exist apart from time, motion, space, and 
number, or from causation, force, form, and kind. 
Then thought becomes a ghost. 

As classes are found in nature and discovered by 
science, so groups are also produced by art for a 
purpose. As the products of nature are used in art 
a regrouping may arise which has in view only the 
characteristics of the things of nature and art as they 
are utilized in art. The builder recognizes the 
group of building materials as a class of things in 
which he is especially interested; the mariner the 
group of stores which he must provide for his voy- 
age ; the traveler his outfit which he must carry in 
his trunk. Such groups can be illustrated to an 
indefinite extent. They are always dichotomous on 
the plan of perception which groups things into the 
perceived this and the not this, or the individual and 
the environment. The two groups are composed 
of heterogeneous things, as they are known in natural 
classification, selected for a purpose and distin- 
guished from those not selected. 



122 TRUTH AND ERROR 

In the presentation of a theme the speaker or 
writer is prone to arrange his material in a scheme 
which may be very wise for the purpose intended for 
distinct presentation and clear understanding. Such 
a piece of valuable literature may live, and the 
schematization may be taken as a classification with 
disastrous results. Schematization is valuable for 
ephemeral purposes, but classification has enduring 
value. The author who uses a valid classification as 
a schematization is always clear, while the author 
who uses a schematization which is not a valid classi- 
fication thereby introduces an element of confusion. 

Before the rise of science artificial and natural 
classes were often confounded. This especially 
appears in the development of names. Among 
many tribes of Indians things are classified into the 
standing, sitting, and lying; or into standing, sit- 
ting, lying, and moving, which is a classification by 
attitudes. In other languages things are classified 
by their states. A fundamental classification existed 
among the Greeks as the four elements, earth, air, 
fire, and water. 

As science first develops, classes are based on 
inadequate characters ; that is, a few characters only 
are taken as the basis, as in the Linnean classifica- 
tion of plants. But as science progresses, classes are 
discovered which more thoroughly express the facts; 
to these classes names are given, and the names as 
they are thus classed are the names of the things 
classed and the metaphoric names of the concepts 
of the classes. 

Now we must consider identity and difference. 
Mineral bodies are identical in having the four 
properties of number, space, motion, and time, and 



CLASSIFICATION 123 

by hypothesis, judgment; but they differ in rela- 
tions. An organic body undergoes a secular change 
in kind, form, force, causation, and by hypothesis, 
conception, and differs from itself at different times 
in these respects. At different times the same body 
in part is identical in its different phases and in part 
different ; thus there is identity and difference in the 
individual at different times. 

In the plant there is the same identity as in the 
mineral, but there is an additional difference, for the 
plant grows by minute increments through the addi- 
tion of new matter. 

The animal has the same identity and difference 
as the plant; but it has other differences, for the 
substance of the animal grows and decays coinci- 
dently. The same animal is not composed of the 
same identical substance from time to time, but only 
of the same kind of substance, for its food is con- 
tinuously assimilated and used in function and dis- 
charged as new food is absorbed. 

But there is another identity to be explained, 
namely, class identity, for the member of a class is 
identical with every other member of the class in 
some respects, and different from every other mem- 
ber of the class in other respects. In minerals the 
individuals are identical in being composed of the 
same substance, and different in being composed of 
different quantities of the same substance. The 
individuals of a class of plants are identical in sub- 
stance, but different in quantity and in history. In 
animals the individuals are identical in kind of sub- 
stance, different in quantity and history, and also 
different in that their substance undergoes a secular 
change by absorbing new substance and throwing 



124 TRUTH AND ERROR 

off the old. In common ideation animals differ in 
other respects from plants and minerals, in that 
they are animate bodies, and have the property of 
judgment or consciousness. 

The same body is relegated to different classes in 
a hierarchy of classes by the consideration of differ- 
ent degrees of identity. The fewer but more funda- 
mental the identities the greater the number of the 
individuals in the class; the fewer the number of 
variables and the less fundamental the variables, the 
smaller the number of individuals within the class. 
Following the methods of classification as bodies are 
found in nature, the same object is found to fall 
within different classes, which constitute a hierarchy. 
Thus every object has its identities grouped in a 
hierarchy of classes. A horse is identical with all 
other horses in certain attributes, but it is also iden- 
tical with all animals in a fewer number of attributes, 
though it may be considered as an object. No horse 
exists solely as an animal ; but it may be considered 
only as an animal, that is, we may consider those 
properties which make it an animal. No horse 
exists which is only a vertebrate, but we may con- 
sider only those characteristics which make it a 
vertebrate. No horse exists only as a mammal, but 
we may consider only those characteristics which 
constitute the mammal. No horse exists only as a 
horse, but we may consider those characteristics 
which constitute the horse and still there will remain 
the characteristics which distinguish it from other 
horses. Thus, in the different groups into which 
the horse is thrown in the series, we may consider 
its different attributes in every class, but it is only a 
method of consideration. This is a concrete world, 



CLASSIFICATION I 25 

and objects are concrete in all their classes, and no 
entity or body exists which corresponds solely to the 
class to which the object belongs. 

A fallacy has tainted philosophy from the early 
history of civilization to the present time through 
the entanglement which has arisen from considering 
an object as belonging to different classes. It has 
been supposed that there is an entity which repre- 
sents the class as distinct from every individual of 
the class to which the characteristics of the individual 
adhere. This nothing which has been entertained 
by philosophers is a fallacy. It is an easy thing 
to be lost in the maze of speculation about classes 
in which fallacies fill the mind and obscure the real 
world. Abstraction is simply a method of considera- 
tion useful and necessary in cognition, but to sup- 
pose that the things which we consider abstractly 
have a disjunct existence is to enter the realm of 
metaphysical illusions. 

In early society the origin of names was not 
understood, and often names were believed to be 
properties, especially when properties were consid- 
ered as qualities. When the characteristics which 
belong to a kind and make it a kind were considered 
as the attributes of distinct entities, called essences, 
then the name was considered to be one of these 
essential attributes or properties by which the class 
was designated. Thus a fallacy was made to breed 
a fallacy, and the two fallacies grew up together and 
are often connected, and how can you dispel the 
fallacy of essence without dispelling the fallacy of 
inherent name? Thus a pair of ghosts stalk the 
world together, and fight each other's battles. How 
these ghosts waltzed in the dance of philosophy 



126 TRUTH AND ERROR 

seems a marvelous feat — a Tarn O'Shanter dance of 
warlock and witch. 

It is not strange that those who believe in a sub- 
strate of substance should also believe in an essence 
of kind ; then this essence becomes the noumenon, 
and the characteristics of class become the 
phenomena; this dream is the reality of metaphysic; 
the knowledge of science is the identification of 
phenomenon with noumenon. 

It has already been asserted that classification is a 
tool of logic ; and this assertion now requires demon- 
stration. The first law of deduction may be formu- 
lated in the following terms: whatever is true of 
anything is true of its class identity. Inductive 
reasoning is the discovery of the members of a class; 
that is, it is classification; deductive reasoning is the 
application of the first law of reason as given above. 

A drop of water is analyzed and found to be com- 
posed of oxygen and hydrogen in certain propor- 
tions ; other analyses verify this conclusion. Now, 
by the first law of deduction every drop of pure 
water in the sea, on the land, and in the air has a 
like composition ; but in every drop of water found 
in nature there are other substances, and for the 
analysis of the water these substances are eliminated. 
Xow I take water from a spring, and though satis- 
fied that water is oxygen and hydrogen in certain 
proportions, yet in this water there are other sub- 
stances for which I must seek, and by induction I 
discover them. Induction is here the discovery of 
the nature of pure water and other kinds of water, 
and as these facts are learned by induction the sev- 
eral kinds are classified, and then the first law of 
deduction applies to each class. Induction is the 



CLASSIFICATION 127 

discovery of class, and thus the discovery of the 
law ; deduction is the application of law. 

All laws may be reduced to this form, and are but 
variants of it. There is nothing occult or wonderful 
in the nature of law; law is just as simple as relation, 
just as simple as persistence, just as simple as speed, 
just as simple as extension, just as simple as unity. 
In scientific philosophy the process of reasoning 
reduces the complex to the simple. In metaphys- 
ical philosophy the attempt is made to explain the 
simple in terms of the complex. 

Many errors have arisen in respect to the nature 
of classification, of which two are of such importance 
to our present work as to require elucidation. It 
has been held by some that classes are inventions 
and not discoveries, especially by those who have 
reified and personified the world as pure mind. 
Some who have not fallen into this error have still 
considered classes as artificial, invented for the pur- 
pose of economizing thought, and that real classes 
are found only because all of the units are not 
apprehended, and that classification is thus a prod- 
uct of ignorance and an infirmity of language. To 
a mind having infinite comprehension classification 
would be unnecessary; the whole would be grasped 
in mind simultaneously. Now ideas are evolved 
serially, hence it becomes necessary to take them 
one by one as they come and to group them and 
regroup them in hierarchies, for while the bodies of 
which they are ideas are presented to the mind 
serially of themselves, they exist in systems of 
hierarchies, and they are thus presented in nature 
in a hierarchy of bodies of different orders. 

The things of this world are presented to the senses 



128 TRUTH AND ERROR 

in a chaos of phenomena. At every glance of wak- 
ing life we see a number of heterogeneous colors and 
a number of heterogeneous bodies. While this goes 
on we hear a number of heterogeneous sounds arising 
from heterogeneous bodies. At the same time we 
smell heterogeneous odors from heterogeneous 
bodies, and taste heterogeneous flavors from 
heterogeneous bodies, and touch heterogeneous 
surfaces of heterogeneous bodies, and discover 
heterogeneous forces in heterogeneous bodies, 
perhaps all in one second of time; but as the 
instances come new sensations come in the most 
heterogeneous manner, and the things presented 
to the senses seem to constitute a chaos. Out of 
this chaos a cosmos arises, for sensation, which is 
the fundamental faculty of the mind, is classification. 
This classification is fundamentally mechanical. 
The eye sees the colors and classifies them, the ear 
hears the sounds and classifies them, the nose smells 
the odors and classifies them, the tongue tastes the 
flavors and classifies them, the touch feels the sur- 
faces and classifies them, the muscular sense feels 
the forces and classifies them, and behold, all of 
these sensations are wrought into systems as if by 
magic ! 

In one chapter we considered bodies as particles, 
and found that we were discussing quantitative 
properties, as number, space, motion, time, and judg- 
ment. In another chapter we considered particles as 
incorporated, and found ourselves to be dealing with 
categoric properties, as kinds, forms, forces, causa- 
tions, and concepts. Then in another chapter we 
discussed the reincorporation of bodies as they are 



CLASSIFICATION I29 

revealed in geonomy, and found ourselves dealing 
with both quantitative and classific properties. In 
another chapter we discussed methods of reincor- 
poration in plants, or the bodies of phytonomy, in 
which we were compelled again to consider quanti- 
tative and classific properties. Finally, a chapter 
was devoted to a third method of the reincorpora- 
tion of bodies as they are revealed in zoonomy, and 
again we were led to consider both quantitative and 
classific properties. 

Here it becomes necessary to more clearly dis- 
tinguish those bodies which we have called molar, 
for the term has been used in a somewhat restricted 
sense which should be understood. By a molar 
body we mean one which is revealed to the senses 
without the use of instruments such as the telescope, 
the microscope, the spectroscope, or the crucible, 
aided by computation and logical ideation. 

All geonomic bodies are molar bodies, and so are 
plants and animals. Savage and barbaric men sup- 
posed the stars to be molar bodies, while ethereal 
bodies were wholly unknown, their manifestations 
being interpreted as phenomena due to molar bodies. 
Thus the concepts of mankind were first compounded 
of judgments about molar bodies, or such as were 
supposed to be molar, and intellection progressed in 
this manner until the dawn of civilization and the 
invention of instruments of research, mathematical 
computation and logical ideation. 

Man seems to occupy a position in the world mid- 
way between extremes of magnitude. On the one 
side there are bodies which are vast systems of stars 
like the solar system, and these are revealed by the 
employment of instruments as aids to vision, and 



I30 TRUTH AND ERROR 

are further revealed by careful investigation as 
magnitudes are measured and computed; on the 
other hand there are magnitudes that are so minute 
that they are revealed only by the microscope and 
other methods of investigation, especially in chem- 
istry where molecules and atoms appear, and are 
further revealed when we investigate the nature of 
the ether and find ourselves immersed in the contem- 
plation of magnitudes that are lost in immeasurable 
numbers. Between these extremes we find molar 
bodies that are revealed to the senses as bodies with- 
out the supplementary devices. Thus we use the 
terms molar, stellar, and molecular to designate in a 
general way the magnitude of bodies as they are 
compared with the magnitude of our bodies and the 
means by which these comparative magnitudes are 
determined. 

When we go on to discover stellar bodies we find 
that we observe them from our standpoint by con- 
sidering their quantitative properties, that is, con- 
sidering them as particles, and ultimately find that 
these stellar particles are combined in systems. 
Again, when we investigate the minute constitution 
of bodies we also consider them as particles, and 
deal with quantitative properties, and through the 
quantitative properties discover their forms as struc- 
ture and figure. Thus it is that in the minute and 
vast alike, in stars and in molecules, in systems and 
ethereal particles, science is interested chiefly in 
quantitative properties, and through them classific 
properties are revealed. 

Plants and animals, which are molar bodies by our 
definition, first come to be investigated in modern 
or national civilization when they are treated as 



CLASSIFICATION 131 

kinds and classified ; but as we discover their kinds 
we discover relations of form, force, causation, and 
mentation, and a multitude of appliances for research 
are developed. 

In these realms research deals with categoric 
properties, and reduces all phenomena to kinds, and 
the ultimate expression of all knowledge is classifica- 
tion verified by quantification. In plants bodies are 
reduced to particles when a minimum of computa- 
tion can be used. So animals are reduced to par- 
ticles by research, and again computation can be 
used. The goal reached by research is the particle, 
the way traveled is by classific logic, while in 
etheronomy and astronomy the goal reached is the 
body, and the road pursued is mathematical compu- 
tation. In geonomy both methods of research are 
used. The quantitative and categoric methods of 
research are conventional. Quantities are measured 
by conventional or artificial methods, with artificial 
or conventional units. Kinds are also in the same 
sense and by equivalent processes selected as the 
representative of forms, forces, causations and men- 
tations in order that classification may proceed and 
logical results be reached. Thus logic and mathemat- 
ics are reciprocal methods of procedure in the cogni- 
tion of the world. The mathematical method is chiefly 
deductive, the logical method is chiefly inductive, 
but they cannot be separated. There is no deduc- 
tion without its reciprocal induction, and there is no 
induction without its reciprocal deduction. Deduc- 
tion is abstraction which posits induction, and induc- 
tion is abstraction when deduction is posited. Deduc- 
tion and induction cannot be carried on apart, for 
deduction is dependent upon induction, and induction 



132 TRUTH AND ERROR 

is dependent upon deduction, and the attempt to dis- 
sever them leads the mind into a fog of speculation 
where men are lost on the shoreless sea of meta- 
physics or the endless trail of unrelated facts. 



CHAPTER X 



HOMOLOGY 



Extension may be defined as exclusive occupancy 
of space. The particles having extension exclude 
others from that extension, and thus extension has 
also been called impenetrability. The particle hav- 
ing motion changes its position to occupy space 
vacated; hence, change of position is always 
exchange of position. As the particles are all in 
motion at an inconceivable rate of speed, one evacu- 
ates its position as another enters. 

The idea of a plenum of substance was entertained 
by philosophers in the early history of civilization. 
Gradually this was abandoned by many, but lately it 
has been revived as best explaining the phenomena 
of the ether, and countenance is given to the 
hypothesis by the demonstration that molecular 
bodies have internal motions and interspatial ether. 

Space is the relation of extension which particles 
bear to one another in position, when considered 
without regard to their incorporation in a higher 
body. If the particles be not ultimate a medium of 
smaller particles is intercalated. Space, therefore, 
is the extension of positions. 

While space is the relation of positions, positions 
and relations must vanish if the extensions vanish. 
These relations may be relations of direction, or they 
may be relations of distance, but as particles are in 
motion the relations of direction are changed. In 
the same manner the relations of distance may 

133 



134 TRUTH AND ERROR 

change. Thus the boy and the dog may change 
relation of direction, when one or both move, and 
they may or may not change relations of distance at 
the same time. These space relations do not 
change by reason of intervening bodies. The boy 
may be a yard from the dog though a wall inter- 
venes. 

When positions are considered as established by 
incorporation, forms are observed having the rela- 
tions of the particles established, and these estab- 
lished relations constitute structure and figure ; £hus 
form is figure and structure. When space becomes 
form, extension becomes figure and position becomes 
structure. 

By incorporation particles retain in a qualified 
degree their space relations ; that is, the space rela- 
tions must be fixed within such limits that the incor- 
poration is preserved, for if dissolution supervenes 
form relations are dissolved. Still, form relations 
are not fixed with such rigidity as to prevent internal 
motion. A body may still remain a body within 
certain degrees of temperature, passing through 
stages of bulk by contraction and expansion, but if 
the expansion is increased beyond the critical point 
the body is dissolved. 

We consider bodies as particles when we consider 
their space relations, and we consider them as forms 
when we consider their corporeal relations as units. 
Habits of thought are formed in such a manner that 
some bodies are usually considered as particles, 
while other bodies are usually considered as bodies. 
By like habits- of thought it is customary to consider 
the solar system, not as a body, but as an assemblage 
of orbs, for the science of astronomy has not yet sue- 



HOMOLOGY 135 

cessf ully attacked the problem of the relation of the 
solar system to other stellar systems. When a body 
is considered as an individual in shape and structure, 
form is presented; but when a body is considered as 
a community of particles, space is considered. Thus 
it is seen that what is called space in the relations of 
particles, is called structure in the relations of form. 
In this treatise the term space is never used to 
denote the void — the nothing — but is always used to 
denote something real; so that space relations are 
the reciprocals of structure relations. 

When we consider stars as such they are bodies, 
the particles of which are molecules. If we could 
study them as molecules they would present rela- 
tions of structure ; so we may conceive of such rela- 
tions, though we cannot actually observe them ; but 
we can observe the figures of the bodies. Stars are 
embodied into systems when they, in turn, become 
particles and have space relations to one another; 
this is structure from the standpoint of the system, 
but the systems as bodies have form as figure and 
structure. Here in the celestial realm is found a 
series or hierarchy of individuals and communities. 

When we come to the study of the earth as a 
body, we find it composed of four particles: the 
atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere, and 
the centrosphere. When we consider it as a body we 
consider form and structure ; when we consider the 
spheres as particles their relations are those of space, 
one above another; thus in the body there is form, 
in the particles there is position, and that which is 
position in the particle constitutes structure in the 
body. 

Again the stony crust or lithosphere may be con- 



136 TRUTH AND ERROR 

sidered as a body when its particles are formations 
of igneous, aqueous, aerial, vegetal, and animal 
origin. Then as a form its structure is derived from 
its formations, which are related to one another in 
structure. 

The formations may be considered as bodies; then 
the blocks of which they are composed, called rocks, 
are particles. The structure of the formation is the 
arrangement of the rocks ; the relations of the rocks 
to one another are relations of structure. We may 
consider rocks as bodies, and omitting ill-defined 
granulation and incomplete crystallization and also 
omitting for the present purposes the consideration 
of the substances of which the rocks are composed, 
we may consider rocks as bodies with particles of 
molecules; then the form of the rock is its structure 
of molecules; the relation of the molecules to one 
another in position is structure. Omitting various 
molecular stages in the hierarchy, we find atoms as 
the particles of molecules, the molecules having 
form in figure and structure and the atoms having 
space in their relations of positions to one another. 
Thus in the geonomic realm there is found a hierarchy 
of individuals and a hierarch)^ of communities. 

The sciences of geonomy are divided usually into 
two correlative groups, called geography, in which 
five departments are pretty well recognized, namely, 
ethereal geography, stellar geography, aerial 
geography, hydrographic geography, and land 
geography ; and geology, composed of five well recog- 
nized sciences: chemistry, mineralogy, dynamics, 
structural geology, and paleontology. What I have 
called geography is approached from the standpoint 
of quantitative properties, while those sciences which 



HOMOLOGY 137 

I have called geology are approached from the 
standpoint of categoric properties. This division 
into two groups is well recognized when the one is 
considered as deductive and the other as inductive, or 
when the one is relegated to the physical division, 
the other to the natural history division. 

We may consider a plant as a body; then the 
phytons of which it is composed are particles. A 
phyton may be considered as a body, then the cells 
are considered as particles ; in turn, the cell may be 
considered as a body, then its blasts may be consid- 
ered as particles. Then a blast as the nucleus may 
be the body whose particles are molecules, and the 
molecule as a body has atoms for its particles. Thus 
there is a hierarchy of bodies and of particles in the 
plant realm in which the bodies have form while the 
particles have space. We do not aspire to a treatise 
on botany, but stop to consider only certain facts 
which are essential to this argument ; a consideration 
of the higher plants will serve our purpose. Certain 
phytons are modified to become roots, which are the 
organs devoted to the absorption from the earth of 
the materials which are to be woven into the plant ; 
other phytons become the stem for support ; others 
the branches for expansion; others the leaves for 
respiration ; others pistils and stamens for reproduc- 
tion, while others become floral envelopes for their 
protection. Every group of phytons in the plant, 
therefore, has a separate function, and is an organ. 
All of these organs, except those for reproduction, 
have functions relating to the metamorphosis of the 
individual ; but the floral envelope and seed organs 
are devoted to reproduction. This development of 
phytons into organisms and organs leads in the study 



138 TRUTH AND ERROR 

of botany to the consideration of the homologies of 
the organs. Reproduction in the plant makes a vast 
stride from ontogeny to phylogeny. Here we are 
introduced to the subject of heredity. Plants are 
multiplied in vast numbers and the offspring inherit 
likeness from parents; this inheritance is put at 
usury, so that each heir inherits the entire posses- 
sions of the legator, and wealth is multiplied by 
bequest. Then the legatee places his wealth at 
usury, and with its increments bequeaths it to every 
individual who is a legatee: so organs and organisms 
are developed. 

The simplest plants are protophytes and unicel- 
lular; but these unicellular bodies are still more 
highly organized in the higher protophytes when 
unicellular bodies are connected with one another 
by vegetal threads which are themselves unicellular 
bodies metamorphosed by elongation, as in the 
slimes. The protophytes are simple cellate bodies 
which multiply by fission, and growth itself becomes 
reproduction. 

The cells themselves are organized into tissues 
and the tissues are arranged in form as planes and 
combinations of planes. In combining, the planes 
are sometimes arranged about stems of trunks. 
These are the thallophytes. The entire thallophyte 
is a cell with structural parts as nucleus endoblast, 
mesoblast and exoblast. 

In the thallophytes growth is chiefly marginal to a 
plane. Reproduction is not a division of the whole 
plant into new plants, but is a division of only por- 
tions of the plant which are organs of reproduction. 
Spores are thrown off from the surface of the repro- 
ductive organ. 



HOMOLOGY 139 

Systematic botanists seem to be agreed in placing 
the bryophytes below the pterodophytes. 

In the bryophytes a nucleated cylinder is produced 
which grows mainly by elongation. Special organs 
of reproduction appear with many devices for the 
preservation of the spores and their distribution over 
the soil. In the nature of these reproductive organs 
I find evidence of high rank. The leaves also are 
not mere fronds or expansions of the body, but are 
highly differentiated leaves. 

In the pterodophytes the thallophytic structure in 
planes is still predominant, but roots are developed, 
the bodies are of more or less cylindrical form, and 
thallophytic leaves are often found as fronds. The 
reproductive organs are more highly differentiated. 
In some the margins of fronds are renexed to make 
seed vessels, in others segments of fronds or entire 
fronds are transformed and there are other methods 
of forming seed vessels. In all a great variety of 
seed vessels are found, all exhibiting comparatively 
simple transformation; the cellate structure of the 
entire plant is still preserved, though greatly 
metamorphosed. 

The spermatophytes are the flowering plants. In 
this sub-kingdom the seeds are no longer mere spores, 
but are plant bodies with microscopically developed 
forms. The entire plant preserves the cellate 
structure, while all the organs of the plant are of 
cellular structure. 

The forms of plants are seriated three times : 

First, there is the series through which the indi- 
vidual plant passes. Now the forms exhibited in the 
individual plant at different stages of growth may 
be compared with the forms of plants of the same 



140 TRUTH AND ERROR 

species taken at different stages of growth, and the 
same results reached without waiting for the growth 
of one plant. 

Second, we may study different species of plants 
and compare them with some one taken as a stand- 
ard ; but this should be a plant of the highest struc- 
ture. Then in comparing plants of lower structure 
with it, it will be found that the stages marked in 
the growth of the higher plant are represented by 
stages in the order in which the record has been kept 
in the higher. 

Third, a record has been kept in the tome of 
geology by which the forms of plants have been 
recorded, not in the language of symbols, but in the 
language of the forms themselves as fossils. While 
knowledge of this record is incomplete, in so far as 
it has been read, it agrees with the individual records 
and the class records. 

The cell of the plant has a structure consisting of 
a threefold capsule or wall and a nucleus. The seed 
of the plant has the same structure with the three- 
fold wall or epidermis and nucleus, and the cellular 
structure is preserved in the plant itself, which 
retains its envelope of bark divided into three layers 
which contain a nucleus. We have already found 
that the earth has a cellate structure, in the air, 
the sea, the land, and the nucleus ; the elements of 
this structure we have called spheres or cellates. 
We call the structural elements of the cell, the seed 
and the plant, blasts or cellates. 

Some plants are single celled. These have many 
forms, but one form is homologous with another, 
that is, it is composed of the same structural ele- 
ments. The cells are compounded into phytons and 



HOMOLOGY 141 

grow into different forms, but one phyton is homol- 
ogous with another ; then phytons are compounded, 
and still higher plants are produced which are 
metamorphosed into different forms ; but one higher 
plant is homologous with another. Phytons being 
composed of cells are homologous with cells, and 
higher plants being composed of phytons are homol- 
ogous with phytons, and thus with cells; that is to 
say, the discovery of homologies in plants is the 
discovery of the morphologic elements of which they 
are compounded. As they are compounded, cells 
are differentiated, and when they are compounded 
into phytons differentiated cells make differentiated 
phytons, then differentiated phytons make differ- 
entiated higher plants. 

In plants there is another set of homologies in the 
position of the leaves, which is revealed to us in the 
science of phyllotaxy. 

Metamorphosis is growth and decay. One body 
cannot grow unless another body decays ; one crystal 
cannot increase in size unless some other yields its 
particles for that purpose; one plant cannot grow 
unless molecules of water and other substances are 
used to constitute the molecule of protoplasm ; one 
animal cannot grow unless some other animal or 
some plant dies ; thus metamorphosis is decay of one 
and growth of another. 

Development which supervenes upon metamor- 
phosis is the production of cooperative organs all 
necessary to the life, growth and reproduction of the 
individual, and these organs have different powers, 
which in physiology are called functions. The exer- 
cise of functions is accomplished by metabolism, 
which is the recombination of chemical particles so 



142 TRUTH AND ERROR 

that new particles come to take the place of those 
rejected. In this exchange particles do not lose 
speed, but all have their directions changed. That 
which is required for present consideration is that 
exercise stimulates the exchange. Now, activity of 
function increases metabolism ; total rest from activ- 
ity retards metabolism, and continued rest will ulti- 
mately cause atrophy ; thus the form of the animal 
is transformed, for the slow changes that occur in 
this manner are transmitted to offspring, and if the 
offspring continue the process, growth or deca3 7 are 
continued in the next generation, and on through many 
generations, producing results as varieties and finally 
species, as organs are developed and extirpated. 

We have now to consider animals and the organs 
of which they are composed in the transmutations 
through which they pass as illustrating the subject 
of morphology. 

There are five great classes of animals: Protozoa, 
Radiata, Mollusca, Articulata, and Vertebrata. 
The Protozoans are unicellular or simple combina- 
tions of cells. Above the Protozoa, animals are 
organized on four different plans of structure, but 
they are all compounded of cells, though many of 
the cells are greatly modified. In these modifica- 
tions the cellate structure reappears as a funda- 
mental homologue in every organ of all of the higher 
animals, and it is still found in the animals them- 
selves. The phytons of plants are the homologues 
of organs in animals. There may be many phytons 
serving the same functions in plants, as there may 
be many organs serving the same function in ani- 
mals; but in animals, as functions are differentiated, 
kinds of organs are multiplied and the number of 



HOMOLOGY 143 

organs performing the same functions is diminished 
from the lower to the higher organism. 

In animals the fundamental homologies are found 
when we discover that all organs are dermal. We 
cannot stop here to make an exposition of this sub- 
ject throughout the whole animal kingdom, but will 
confine ourselves to one small group of vertebrates, 
namely, the mammals. 

First, there are organs of nutrition, constituting all 
those that take part in the digestion, secretion, and 
excretion of food. Second, organs of circulation, by 
which the food when prepared for assimilation is 
distributed to the tissues. Third, organs of locomo- 
tion, constituting the muscular, tendonous, and 
osseous systems. Fourth, the reproductive organs. 
Fifth, the organs of mentation, constituting the 
nervous system. 

The organs of digestion which prepare the food 
are severally sacs and tubes, and conjointly they 
constitute a system of sacs and tubes, but in this 
system locomotion must be accomplished, and hence 
a muscular system is attached to the digestive 
system. Thus all the organs of digestion are cellate 
in that they have the cellate elements, for they are 
composed of encapsulated parts, or inclosing or 
inclosed envelopes. 

The circulating organs are all found to be cellate 
as tubes or sacs, one or both. In this system 
extreme variations are found; in the veins and 
arteries the tubular structure is carried to its 
highest development, while in the gall, the liver, 
and the lungs, the sacate form is observed; while 
the heart is a muscular organ it is still provided with 
tubes and sacs. 



144 TRUTH AND ERROR 

In the muscular system every distinct muscle has 
a cellate structure, and they are compounded into 
groups on the cellate plan. Muscles when consid- 
ered in phylogeny are found to develop into tendons 
and tendons into bones; the same development is 
discovered to a limited degree in ontogeny, so that 
muscles, tendons and bones are homologous. The 
cellate structure of bones is conspicuous, for they all 
have the periosteum and nucleus. 

In the reproductive systems both sacs and tubes 
are found, all of cellate structure. 

In the nervous system the differentiation between 
sacs and tubes is carried to its highest degree. The 
nerves proper are all tubular cellates. In the lowest 
units they are cellate, and they are compounded as 
cellates. In the ganglia they are sacate, and are 
compounded as sacs. Certain of the ganglia have 
osseous protection as vertebrae, and every vertebra is 
a cellate structure as a bone with elaborate differ- 
entiation in morphology. The vertebras that have 
united to form the cranium are extremely differ- 
entiated as morphologic elements, but the most 
extreme of morphologic elements is found in the 
organs of sense, every organ having a distinct form, 
and all preserving the cellate structure. 

Then the systems of organs which we have just 
described are themselves compounded into systems, 
of which hint has already been given. While this 
subject is vast and tempting, the purpose is sub- 
served merely by giving a few illustrations ; and we 
must forego systematic treatment. In the mouth 
there are found elements of the digestive apparatus : 
the circulatory apparatus, the muscular apparatus, as 
muscles, tendons, and bones, and perhaps elements 



HOMOLOGY 145 

for reproductive purposes and certainly apparatus 
for mental functions in the sense of taste. Perhaps 
in all parts of the body all the five functions are per- 
formed by apparatus provided for the purpose. 
Finally, the entire animal has a sacate and tubular 
structure, and is thus a grand cellate of a high order 
of compounding. 

The cellate homologies of the man are repeated in 
all mammals, while the same facts can be seen in 
birds, reptiles, batrachians and fishes, for all the 
pentalogic classes present a vast hierarchy of homol- 
ogies, which illustrate the theme of morphology. 
Nor does the subject end with vertebrate morphol- 
ogy, for the theme is illustrated in the homologies 
found through articulates, mollusks, radiates, and 
protozoa. That which we find in the pentalogic 
classes of plants we find also in the pentalogic classes 
of animals — a vast hierarchy of homologies. 

Perhaps the great field yet to be cultivated in 
morphology is in the study of the articulates, 
especially among insects. The sudden transforma- 
tions which they undergo in their life history permit 
the examination of morphologic stages to such an 
extent that morphology can be studied with all its 
multitudinous phenomena, and a wealth of science 
has already been accumulated as a heritage for the 
army of scientists necessary to give us a complete 
account of the insects of the world, among whom 
are found tribes that vie almost with men in demotic 
development. 

We now see how homologies are extended from 
atom to organism. There are homologies discovered 
in the atoms, which has given rise to the theory that 
the atoms discovered in the seventy substances are 



146 TRUTH AND ERROR 

not ultimate particles, and it must be remembered 
that it rests only upon the validity of reasoning from 
homologies, but that all deductive reasoning is based 
on homologies; it may, therefore, be impossible to 
reach an inductive demonstration of the complete 
homology of ultimate particles, but the deductive 
reasoning is perfect. Then molecules which cannot 
be seen and cannot be manipulated as individual, but 
can be discovered only by chemical apparatus, are 
found by analysis and synthesis to exhibit many 
homologies, and the science of chemistry undertakes 
this enterprise. 

The earth is a cellate body, and from facts 
revealed by astronomy it is confidently affirmed that 
the stars are cellate bodies. Finally, homologies 
are found in plants and animals; thus there is a 
hierarchy of homologies throughout the universe 
which constitute a continuum, and logically no plane 
of demarcation can be discovered which constitutes 
an absolute gap. The continuum is not completely 
demonstrated by induction, but is abundantly 
demonstrated by deduction. 

Homologies have a high development in the 
organization of demotic bodies discovered in the 
animals, especially as they are represented among 
the higher insects, but more fully illustrated in the 
organization of human society. The forms of 
organization are various. In the tribes of the world 
families are organized into clans, and clans into 
phratries, and phratries into tribes, and tribes into 
confederacies. In passing from savagery to barbar- 
ism, the clan becomes the gens. In all the multi- 
tudinous forms of tribal society, homologies have 
been discovered. In the family husbands and 



HOMOLOGY 147 

wives, parents and children are found, and some- 
times grandparents and more remote kindred are 
included. In the gens consanguineal kinship is 
reckoned in the female line; in the tribe it is reck- 
oned in both male and female lines, and ties of 
affinity are observed. In the confederacy conven- 
tional kinship is recognized, and other homologies 
exist in multitudinous ways. For example, relative 
age is recognized in the family, in the clan or in the 
gens, in the tribe and in the confederacy, and to 
carry out the homology age is often determined by 
convention. 

In national organizations another set of homologies 
are founded on those of tribal organization. Thus, 
in the United States we have the family, the town- 
ship, the county, the state, and the nationality, and 
homologous units are found in all civilized govern- 
ments. 

Whenever two or more bodies are homologous 
they are identical, though they may at the same time 
be different. Homology in form is thus the 
reciprocal of likeness in kind, so that homologies 
fall under the same law with kind, and it may be 
affirmed that whatever is true of an object is true 
of its homologue in so far as they are identical, which 
is but another statement of the law already given in 
classification, that whatever is true of a thing is true 
of its class identity. We have seen that there is a 
vast system of homologies extending throughout the 
universe, commencing with perfect homology in the 
simple element; but gradually differences appear, 
becoming more marked as compounding proceeds 
and differentiation is more marked, that is, there is 
successive progress in variation from the simple to 



148 TRUTH AND ERROR 

the compound, and this variation appears as increas- 
ing complexity. As things become compound they 
also become complex. 

In the foregoing chapters an attempt has been 
made to show the relation which exists between 
extension and unity, position and plurality, space 
and number, form and kind, together with meta- 
morphosis and metalogisis. Now it remains to show 
the relation between organism and class, together 
with a general statement of the relation between 
morphology and classification. It has been shown 
that a class is a series of kinds, and as a series it is a 
disjunct group in a more extended series. It has 
also been shown that a form undergoes a meta- 
morphosis, and that an organism in its history repre- 
sents a hierarchy of metamorphisms as exhibited in 
homology. Now, we must observe that through 
morphology classes are multiplied, for not only are 
kinds and series classified, but forms are also syste- 
matically grouped. 

To investigate the structure of plants we dissect 
them, and find that when the limit of cell structure 
is reached and molecular structure appears, we are 
compelled to pass from dissection to chemical 
analysis. The highest molecule is protoplasm, but 
the protoplasmic molecule is composed of molecules 
of still lower orders until atoms are reached, when 
chemical analysis fails and only logical analysis 
seems possible. 

In investigating the homologies of plants and plant 
structure we are thrown back upon the discovery of 
likeness and unlikeness, or, in other terms, of 
identity and difference ; and we reason about plants, 
as these identities and differences have been dis- 



HOMOLOGY 149 

covered. The discovery of these identities and 
differences is induction, the application of the laws 
discovered is deduction. 

What, then, is the significance of all these facts, 
and why should we gather them from the highways 
of morphology but for the lesson which they teach, 
that all forms of animals, plants, rocks, and stars are 
traced to the substrate of extension in the particle? 
Extension traced through all its complicated rela- 
tions of space, form, metamorphosis and organism is 
found to be the Ultimate substrate of them all. 

Many extended particles incorporated in many 
bodies have relations of position, space, form, 
metamorphosis and organization, all of which are 
included under the term morphology. These rela- 
tions cannot exist by themselves, but can only be 
considered by themselves, for relations of morphol- 
ogy are concomitant with relations of classification, 
dynamics and evolution in the concrete world. 
Bodies can be analyzed only into particles, and the 
particles still retain their properties, which may be 
considered abstractly. If I were called upon to 
nominate the fundamental error in the logic of 
transcendental philosophy I should name it the fail- 
ure to recognize the distinction between analysis 
and abstraction. The failure to see this distinction 
seems to have led Pythagoras to found a philosophy 
upon number; it surely led Plato to found a philos- 
ophy on form; it seems to have led Aristotle to 
found a philosophy on force, and without doubt 
Spencer fell into this error ; while it led the Scholas- 
tics to found a philosophy upon being, and finally it 
led the Idealists to found a philosophy upon thought. 
Thus the five properties of matter have every one in 



150 TRUTH AND ERROR 

turn been taken as the substrate of a philosophy, and 
as the substrate was an abstract the philosophies 
have been abstractions. Metaphysics has been the 
attempt to found a philosophy upon an abstract unit, 
but science is the attempt to found a philosophy 
upon a concrete unit. 

In this chapter an attempt has been made to make 
a summary exposition of the science of morphology, 
for the purpose of showing the certitudes which 
inhere in the science as distinguished from the 
illusions of mythology defended by speculative 
philosophy. In transcendental metaphysics the 
realities of the world are held to be phenomena in 
the sense that they are illusions, and are distin- 
guished from noumena, which are the realities. Sci- 
ence deals with phenomena, and scientific men hold 
that phenomena are realities and noumena in the 
sense of occult substrates are illusions. Transcen- 
dental philosophy deals with noumena, and holds 
them to be realities, and deems phenomena to be 
illusions. 

This is the issue between science and speculation, 
and the contest is war to the knife of logic against 
war to the blade of dialectic; but the knife has 
form, while the blade has void. 

In science one noumenon is space, the reciprocal 
of form ; the corresponding noumenon in metaphysic 
is space as void. Void space is a natural fallacy 
to men in savagery, while yet the presence of 
the ambient atmosphere is unknown, and the 
surface of the earth seems to be an empty theater 
for breath, wind, and storm existing as disparate 
bodies having a ghostlike existence. Having 
imagined an empty space, it still continues to exist 



HOMOLOGY 151 

in mythology as a void for the theater of gravity, 
heat, light, electricity and magnetism, after the air 
itself has been discovered and understood by all 
civilized men. Now that this notion is dispelled 
there is no void within the ken of man. All known 
interspaces have been resolved into forms. If in the 
depths of the infinitesimal void spaces exist between 
the particles of ether, it may be well to await their 
discovery ere we characterize them by assigning 
properties to nothing. 



CHAPTER XI 



DYNAMICS 



A citizen of a township must obey the laws of the 
township. The same person is also a citizen of the 
county subject to the laws of the county, a citizen 
of the state subject to the laws of the state, a citizen 
of the United States subject to the laws of the 
United States, and finally he is a citizen of the 
world, subject to international law. Thus a man 
belongs to a hierarchy of governmental incorpora- 
tions in which he may demand rights and must per- 
form duties of allegiance. 

In the same manner every atom of matter in the 
lowest body exists in a hierarchy of bodies. An 
atom of hydrogen exists in the molecule of water. 
The same atom exists also in the sea, the earth- 
moon body, the solar system, and the galaxy. Now 
this atom of hydrogen partakes in the specific or 
special mode of motion of every body in this 
hierarchy. We may consider the motion of the 
atom of hydrogen in the atom itself, if it is a com- 
pound body as some chemists suppose ; then we may 
consider it in the molecule, then in the tide, then in 
the earth in rotation, then in the earth-moon body 
on an axis within the earth, then in the earth in rev- 
olution in the solar system, and then in the galaxy 
with the solar system, and if there be a system of 
galaxies we may consider it in such body. 

This atom has components of path in an atom, in 
a molecule, in the tide, in the earth, in the earth- 

152 



DYNAMICS 153 

moon body, in the solar system body, in the galaxy 
body, and finally in another system which includes 
the galaxy, if there be such a system. If we con- 
sider the path of an atom in any one of the incor- 
porations in the hierarchy, we can describe it in 
terms of dimensions of space, as space is limited by 
the periphery of that particular body ; but when we 
attempt to describe its motion in two different mem- 
bers of the hierarchy, we are compelled to enlarge 
our conception of space, for the path of a particle in 
the atom is modified by its path in the molecule. 
Then if we consider the path of the atom in the tide 
we must still further modify our concept of it ; then 
if we consider also the path of the atom in the ter- 
restrial motion about the axis of the earth, we must 
again modify our concept of it ; then if we consider 
also its path in the earth-moon body, the solar S) t s- 
tem body, and the galaxy body, we have at last a con- 
cept of the path of the atom in a hierarchy of bodies. 
If we desire, therefore, to conceive of the path fol- 
lowed by the atom of hydrogen directed by all its 
incorporations combined, we must imagine it 
determined by all bodies of the hierarchy, and thus 
to be spiral or vortical. I shall hereafter call this 
path a hierarchal path. 

Descartes conceived this path to be vortical, and 
taught that the ether in moving in a vortical path 
carried with it the celestial bodies, and thus 
explained their revolution. I believe that he prop- 
erly conceived the nature of the path which a par- 
ticle describes in a hierarchy of bodies, but of the 
cause of this path he was in error when he considered 
that the whole body of ether describes the same path 
in a vortex. 



154 TRUTH AND ERROR 

We may describe the motion of a particle in any 
one of its incorporations, neglecting it in the other 
members of the hierarchy, and such a description is 
legitimate if it be understood as motion in the one 
incorporation ; or we may describe the motion of a 
particle in two incorporations, but in order to do so 
it is necessary to use the terms of the space of the 
higher incorporation. This plan must be continued 
through all the incorporations if we try to describe 
all of the deflections of path which are experienced 
by the atom. If we consider the path of a particle 
of matter in every one of the hierarchy of bodies 
severally, we get as many systems of motion as there 
are bodies, and they seem, when thus narrowly and 
imperfectly considered, to be incongruous; but when 
we consider all of these paths concomitantly as 
hierarchal motion in terms of the space of the high- 
est body, they are made congruous. 

Every particle in the universe is in motion, which 
motion is probably constant in rate of speed. 
Motion is not only speed, but also path. While 
the speed in the ultimate particle is constant, the 
path is variable in direction. This is the proposi- 
tion I am trying to maintain. 

Of ponderable matter, as it is found in terrestrial 
and celestial systems, all particles are making a 
grand excursion of the universe. There is no star 
that does not proceed on this journey, nor is there 
any body of matter in the earth which does not 
proceed with the earth in its journey. Ethereal mat- 
ter does not seem to proceed in this manner from 
position to position throughout the universe, but the 
motion of each particle seems to be confined to an 
environment of other particles, and vibrates back and 



DYNAMICS 155 

forth or around and around within its narrow envi- 
ronment. A particle of ponderable matter never 
returns to the position which it occupies at any one 
instant of time, so far as we can determine by rea- 
soning. Every position occupied by a particle is 
instantaneously evacuated, and another particle, 
either of ponderable matter or of ethereal matter, 
takes its place. 

As there is a hierarchy of bodies, and as there is 
a hierarchy of paths for every particle of ponderable 
matter, so there is a hierarchy of freedoms of motion. 
Take three rods, fasten them together by their cen- 
tral points so that they extend in coordinate direc- 
tions. The three rods will constitute a body of rods, 
and although the three are incorporated, that is, 
fixed to one another, the body has three degrees of 
freedom. Fix the ends of these rods to a stone 
quarry, and the three-rod body becomes a com- 
ponent part of the earth body, but still has three 
degrees of freedom. Then the same three-rod body 
has three .degrees of freedom in the earth-moon 
body, the solar system body, and the galaxy body. 
Now we are compelled to believe, by reasoning 
based on facts observed in modern time, that the 
molecular bodies and the atomic bodies of the three- 
rod body have every one three degrees of freedom. 
This reasoning in molecular science is no less cogent 
than that in astronomical science, for chemistry 
gives the same freedom to atoms and molecules that 
astronomy gives to stars and systems. 

We are compelled to conceive of the rigidity of the 
solid state as the homologue of the astronomical 
state, and as we know that the rigidity of the 
astronomical state is a mode of established motion, 



156 TRUTH AND ERROR 

so we conclude that the rigidity of the solid state is 
a mode of established motion. Thus the concept is 
made that man stands between two realms of bodies, 
the vast or astronomical and the minute or molec- 
ular, and that which is observed in astronomy is 
repeated in chemistry. The astronomic world is the 
correlative of the molecular world. If there is no 
gap in this reasoning every particle of matter has a 
constant rate of speed which is subdivided among 
the paths of the hierarchy of incorporations to which 
it belongs. To this form we are compelled to reduce 
the concept of the persistence of motion or the cor- 
relation of forces; for if speed is constant in the 
atom the forces of the universe are correlative, or, 
to use a better term, are reciprocal. This conclusion 
that speed is constant in the particle is necessitated, 
and hence is valid if we accept the fundamental doc- 
trine of modern chemistry that bodies are composed 
of discrete particles. 

Motion can be diverted in any body of the 
hierarchy without increasing the speed of the 
particle. Nature never seems to add to or to sub- 
stract from the speed of the particle, although the 
motion of a molar body may seem to be derived from 
another body so long as we consider only the molar 
motion. But when we consider the motion of the 
particles of the body in their higher and lower incor- 
porations, we find that the apparent added motion is 
deflection. This is illustrated in the earth-moon 
body when it rotates about its axis, and thus deflects 
the motions both of the earth and the moon in their 
common paths around the sun. So, if a body sus- 
pended above the earth falls to the earth, its path 
with the earth in its course is deflected, and the path 



DYNAMICS 157 

of the earth in its course is also deflected. In a fall- 
ing body we observe not only the deflection of ter- 
restrial motion, but the falling body itself is 
composed of molecules and atoms which are in 
motion, and the earth also is composed of molecules 
and atoms in motion, and these paths are also 
deflected by the falling of the body. The deflection 
of their terrestrial motion is but the reciprocal of their 
deflection in molecular motion. When a body, say 
of water, loses heat it gains the strength of structure, 
which is a force, and hence a mode of motion which 
it exhibits as ice. The body does not transmit its 
speed of particle to another body, but only induces a 
corresponding change in that other body from solid 
strength or rigidity to heat motion by deflecting 
molecular paths. Thus motion as speed cannot be 
dissipated. When water is evaporated the particles 
of vapor which are produced still have the same 
amount of motion as speed, and when water and 
carbonic acid are built into wood, their motion 
remains as the solid strength of the wood in another 
mode of molecular path. Here we see that rigidity 
or solid strength is a mode of motion as path. Thus 
it is that motion as speed is persistent in the particle, 
but as path it is variable. 

Every particle in the wooden ball rolling on the 
floor has astronomical path, molecular path, and 
molar path. Consider one of these particles moving 
with the three kinds of motion as three constituents 
of path, and we realize that its speed is very 
great, and that the path which it traverses is greatly 
composite; that is, composed of deflected parts, in a 
hierarchy of bodies. If such a particle had its com- 
posite path straightened into a right-line path it 



158 TRUTH AND ERROR 

would quickly pass out of the sphere of the solar 
system from whatever point within the system it 
might start, and in whatever direction the right-line 
path extended. But the molecule remains within 
the solar system because its stellar path is composite, 
and it remains within the ball because its molar path 
is composite, and it remains within the molecule 
because its molecular path is composite. 

When the ball was started molar path was devel- 
oped, and when it stopped that molar path was 
ended. We must not suppose that molar motion 
as speed came out of nothing and vanished into 
nothing. We resort to preexisting molecular motion 
to explain it. We say that the molar motion was 
derived from the molecular motion of the hand that 
set the ball rolling, and that it was transformed into 
molecular motion in the wall which destroyed the 
molar motion. In making this explanation we 
assume that motion as speed went out of the hand 
into the ball, and then out of the ball into the wall. 
Is this true? Was the speed of the molecular motion 
in the hand diminished and the speed of the molec- 
ular motion in the wall increased? Did motion as 
speed go out of the hand into the ball? There was a 
change in the motion of the hand, and a change in 
the motion of the ball. In what did this change 
consist? We know that in part at least it consisted 
in a change of paths. The molecular paths in the 
hand must have had their directions changed, and 
the molecular paths in the ball must have had their 
directions changed. Is this change of direction all, 
or is there a transference of speed so that one loses 
while the other gains? The whole problem is nar- 
rowed to this issue: That which we call acceleration 



DYNAMICS 



159 



pertains wholly to deflection, or in very small part 
to speed, as loss of speed by one and gain by 
another. 

There is still another set of relations to be con- 
sidered. A body is composed of particles ; in order 
that they should remain within the sphere of the 
body their paths must be composite, and in order 
that their paths may be composite there must be a 
sufficient number of internal collisions to deflect 
them and retain them within that sphere. If the 
body itself is moved the paths of the several par- 
ticles in the average must thus be rendered less 
composite ; that is, the number of collisions must be 
diminished. The motion of the body as such, there- 
fore, is accomplished by diminishing the deflections 
within the body, and thus straightening their paths. 
The translatory motion of a body is a straightening 
of the paths of the particles of which the body is com- 
posed. 

Imagine a man walking in a circle of ten feet 
radius. The sphere of his motion is within the cir- 
cumference. He may soon walk a mile and never 
be more than twenty feet away from any given point 
in the circumference; change his direction so that 
his path is straightened, and he may soon be a mile 
away. A body of men walking in a circle remain 
together as a body within the circumference of the 
circle as it moves with the earth ; change their paths 
to a cycloid directed to a distant point, and the body 
of men will move away in that direction; change 
their paths to parallel right lines, and as a body they 
may soon be a mile away and still in a circle. A 
division of an army may be maneuvering in a field 
as divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, com- 



l6o TRUTH AND ERROR 

panies, and platoons, and yet remain in the same 
field enclosed by a wall ; without walking the indi- 
vidual men with any greater speed you may march 
them to another twenty miles away, and they will 
lie down to rest at night with no less fatigue 
than if they had been maneuvering in the enclosed 
field. 

In the same manner the molecules of the wooden 
ball are in motion within the theater of the ball, so 
that they do not pass beyond its boundaries; yet 
impose upon each molecule a change of direction in 
such a manner that they all move a little more in 
one course, and a translation of the ball is affected 
by a change of direction in the motion of its constit- 
uent molecules, and the ball still remains as an 
incorporated body. It is thus possible to explain the 
molar motion of the ball as a change in direction of 
the motion of its molecular parts, without assuming 
an increase of speed in the parts, but only a develop- 
ment of speed in the body by the deflection of its 
particles. By such an assumption the molar motion 
perceived by vision would be legitimately derived 
from the molecular motion known by higher reason, 
and appear as a change of direction in the molecular 
motions of the ball. No motion as speed would be 
created or destroyed, while the apparent molar 
motion would be explained by a change of direction 
in molecular motions, very minute as compared with 
the composite paths of the several molecules and 
atoms. 

When we consider the total motions of the atoms 
of the ball shot from a cannon's mouth, an incon- 
ceivably small change of direction in the motion of 
every atom, as compared with the complexity of its 



DYNAMICS l6l 

path, would fully account for the flight of the ball as 
projected by dynamite. 

Now we know of deflection and that it arises from 
collision, and we know of no other change in motion. 
Acceleration as increase of speed cannot, in the 
nature of the case, be demonstrated, for it may always 
be explained as deflection, and can never be 
explained without deflection. If acceleration is 
explained as deflection, it is explained by referring 
it to a known cause, and adequately explained. 

It is illegitimate to assume an unknown and 
unknowable cause when a known cause is sufficient 
for the explanation. We may, therefore, affirm that 
the acceleration of a body is the deflection of its 
particles. 

At the Brooklyn meeting of the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science in 1894, I read 
a paper on this subject, in which I tried to demon- 
strate that motion is constant in the particle. In 
the foregoing statement I have put this demon- 
stration in another form. I now propose to give 
it in a new form by the method of rednctio ad 
absurdum. 

Newton taught that inertia is resistance to change 
of state, either as rest or direction of motion, and 
Newton also referred to the ambiguity of the term 
rest without pointing out the nature of this ambi- 
guity. We have seen from the foregoing discussion 
that rest is absence of molar motion, and that molar 
motion is created by deflecting molecular motion. 
Hence the acceleration of a body is reduced to the 
deflection of its particles, as we have already seen. 
Following Newton, it is taught in the text-books of 
physics that inertia is resistance to deflection and 



162 TRUTH AND ERROR 

acceleration; therefore, reduced to the simplest 
terms, inertia is resistance to deflection. 

PROPOSITION 

When two bodies collide their particle paths are 
deflected, but their particle speeds are unchanged. 

First, assume that one body, A, has the mode of 
motion called rest, and that after the collision it has 
molar motion; then its molecular motions are 
deflected. Then assume that their speeds are 
accelerated ; then the particle motions of B also must 
be deflected and accelerated, if action and reaction 
are equal in deflection and speed. Therefore, 
motion as force is created, which is absurd. But 
Newton's law says that action and reaction are equal 
and in opposite directions; therefore, action and 
reaction result only in particle deflection. 

Second, assume that A is at rest, and that at col- 
lision B is brought to rest, and thus that B has the 
speed of its particles diminished; then motion as 
force is annihilated, which is absurd, but action and 
reaction being equal as deflection no speed is lost to 
either. 

Third, assume that the particles of A are deflected 
and their speed accelerated, and that the increase of 
particle speed in A is derived from the particle 
speed of B ; then action and reaction as speed are 
not equal, but while both are equally deflected A 
has more speed, B less, and the more equals the less, 
with opposite signs. Then A after collision, having 
more speed than B after collision, has more inertia, 
which is absurd; therefore, when bodies collide their 
particle paths are deflected, but their particle speeds 
are unchanged. 



DYNAMICS 163 

Let this argument be stated in brief: 

First, the tendency of modern investigation is to 
explain all forces as derived from modes of motion. 
Great progress has been made in this direction, and 
the theory is widely accepted. 

Second, all understood forces are collisions. 

Third, if all forces are collisions the motions from 
which they result obey the third law of motion, that 
action and reaction are equal and in opposite direc- 
tions. By this law it is seen that no motion as speed 
can be lost or gained by any particle of matter. 

Fourth, by collision paths can be changed, but 
motion as speed cannot be transmitted by one par- 
ticle to another. 

Fifth, in starting or stopping molar motion there 
is an apparent creation and annihilation of motion, 
but this appearance is known to be an illusion. It 
is known to be in part deflection, and can all be 
thus explained ; and if the third law of motion is 
valid it is thus explained. 

It must clearly be understood that the above argu- 
ment does not deny that molar motion as speed can 
be created or destroyed ; it simply affirms that molar 
motion cannot be created from nothing, and that it 
cannot be annihilated, but that it comes from molec- 
ular motion and returns to molecular motions. Every 
particle of which we have knowledge is a constituent 
of many bodies in a hierarchy of bodies, and what is 
here affirmed is that the acceleration of a body in 
speed is deflection of its particles, that the particles 
themselves are not accelerated in speed, and further 
that embodiment itself is always a result of deflec- 
tion in the particle embodied. A molar body may 
have its molar motion increased or diminished in 



164 TRUTH AND ERROR 

speed by deflecting its molecular motions. If the 
speed of a molar body be changed, the direction of 
its molecular particles must necessarily be changed. 
This proposition is self-evident. The third law of 
motion is equally simple. The law here demon- 
strated affirms that acceleration in one embodiment 
is deflection in another, and it makes valid Newton's 
law, which would be an absurdity were the law here 
demonstrated untrue ; and if untrue, the persistence 
of motion is an absurdity, and with it the persistence 
of energy falls to the ground. 

When the concept of persistence of speed in the, 
particle is once gained, there follows from it a series 
of corollaries which are demonstrations of axioms of 
scientific experience, but which otherwise have no 
demonstration. The following are examples: 

PROPOSITION 

Gravity, as inversely proportional to the square of 
the distance, is persistent in the mass. 

Assuming that force is motion and gravity force, 
then if the particle can lose any of its speed it can 
lose gravity, which is absurd ; and if in the collision 
of a body speed is transferred from its particles to 
the particles of another body, then the other body 
must weigh more, which also is absurd; therefore, 
gravity, as inversely proportional to the square of the 
distance, is persistent in the mass. 

Speed is not a property which can run away by 
leaping from one particle to another and from one 
body to another; it is not an occult something — a 
mystery, a nothing. It is the speed of a particle. 

We have seen that when particles in motion have 
incident paths they collide and their paths are 



DYNAMICS 165 

deflected; hence, all motion is directed motion. 
Collision or impulse is the first mode of force in 
which action and reaction are exhibited. Then we 
note how right-line paths are divided into com- 
ponents by collision, becoming deflected paths; 
then how by systematic collisions they may be 
developed into revolution. Then we consider that 
particles may be incorporated in a body with their 
several particles revolving around a common center, 
and this revolution of the particles is rotation of the 
body. Thus by incorporation the motions of 
particles may be correlated by rotation and revolu- 
tion, as exhibited in celestial bodies. 

In the case of two stellar orbs revolving about a 
common center, as the earth and the moon, it is plain 
that gravity causes the deflection of both bodies 
inversely proportional to their masses. Here 
acceleration is chiefly deflection, being positive at 
perigee and negative at apogee. So, in the revolu- 
tion of the sun and the earth about a common axis, 
acceleration is chiefly deflection, being positive at 
perihelion and negative at aphelion. Thus we have 
a well-known astronomical example of acceleration, 
and find it deflection and increase or decrease of 
bodily speed, and now we must refer this accelera- 
tion of speed in the body to deflection in the par- 
ticles of which it is composed. 

It is taught in astronomy that in the revolution of 
a planet the area of the radius vector is equal for 
equal times. This doctrine is made simple and plain 
when the nature of acceleration is understood. 

In an ethereal medium of particles moving with a 
persistent speed, two bodies will mutually intercept 
collisions with the ethereal medium inversely pro- 



l66 TRUTH AND ERROR 

portional to the square of their distance apart, which 
is an explanation of the law of gravity, and is the 
theory of La Sage in terms of motion. 

On page 642, Vol. iv, article 22, of Bowditch's 
translation of La Place's Mechanique Celeste it is 
stated : 

"If gravitation be produced by the impulse of a fluid 
directed towards the center of the attracting body, the preced- 
ing analysis, relative to the impulse of the solar light, will give 
the secular equation depending on the successive transmission 
of the attractive force." 

After proving this proposition and obtaining the 
secular equation of the attracting body from the 
successive transmission of gravity, the cause of 
the moon is discussed, and La Place decides that: 

"We must suppose that the gravitating fluid has a velocity 
which is at least a hundred millions of times greater than that 
of light; or at least we must suppose, in its action on the moon, 
that it has at least that velocity to counteract her gravity 
towards the earth. Therefore, mathematicians may suppose, 
as they have heretofore done, that the velocity of the gravi- 
tating fluid is infinite." 

The theory of La Sage is stated in terms of a fluid 
transmitted from one body to another. We now 
know that waves, not fluids, are transmitted in the 
case of heat and light, and in a like manner gravity 
as deflection must be considered as wave action or 
vibration in some form. With these principles the 
instantaneous action of gravity is simple and self- 
evident, for speed is not transmitted, but only 
deflection is caused. 

Every particle has constant motion as speed which 
cannot be increased or diminished, and the absurdity 
of perpetual motion should be called the absurdity 



DYNAMICS 167 

of perpetual collision between two bodies without 
other deflection. The particles collide because of 
impinging paths ; they are deflected and their paths 
are turned apart, and they cannot be made to collide 
again until other external collisions bring their 
paths together. If the particle A is deflected after 
one collision, to be once more deflected, another col- 
lision is necessary. It is thus that the absurdity of 
perpetual collision can be simply demonstrated. 

After such an analysis the doctrine of virtual 
velocities is self-evident ; and there are many other 
consequences of this law which, properly under- 
stood, would make many propositions of physics self- 
evident. 

Motion as speed is constant in the particle. The 
particle, of whatever order it may be in the mem- 
bers of the hierarchy, is accelerated by deflecting its 
particles. The principles or laws of dynamics are 
all corollaries of this fundamental law; hence dynam- 
ics may be taught as a deductive science. Thus 
we have the mathematics of number, the mathe- 
matics of space, and the mathematics of motion, all 
fundamentally deductive sciences. 



CHAPTER XII 



COOPERATION 



We have already discovered the nature of motion 
in its absolute as speed and its relative as path. The 
speed of the ultimate particle has never been 
measured; but bodies as such have their specific 
speeds and one is greater than another. Speed of 
a body is the rate at which it changes its position, 
regardless of the change of position of its particles 
to one another. The speed of one body may be 
taken as the measure of the rate of speed of another, 
and the process used gives rise to the formula of 
Lh-T. The length of path is divided by the time in 
which it is traversed. Thus to convert motion into 
number it must first be converted into terms of 
space. 

We have discovered, in preceding chapters, the 
transmutations which motions undergo by incor- 
poration when they become forces. In order that 
they may be treated mathematically, it is necessary 
that they should be resolved into the quantitative 
categories and expressed in numbers. This resolu- 
tion is accomplished by measurement, and different 
formulae are employed which in mathematical science 
are called the equations of acceleration, force, 
impulse, energy and power. They are all devices 
for reducing force to motion and motion to number. 

In molecular bodies motions are correlated in a 
manner yet unknown, but molecules are known to 
have interior motions exhibited in response to 

1 68 



COOPERATION 169 

motions in the ether as its particles impinge on 
ponderable matter. The correlated structural 
motions of the molecule may be transmuted by col- 
lision with ethereal particles and be converted into 
heat — a mode of motion — so that which is structural 
motion will appear as heat, and if the transmutation 
is carried to a sufficient degree the structure of a 
molecular body will be destroyed, for by heat mol- 
ecules are reduced to lower molecules or to atoms. 
Thus what appears in the molecule as structural 
motion appears in the particle as heat; and when 
disparate particles are incorporated in a molecule 
heat becomes molecular or structural motion. This 
may be stated in another way. By incorporation 
vibratory motion becomes structural motion; by 
decorporation structural motion becomes vibratory 
motion. We know that in stellar systems that which 
is structural motion in the system is vibratory or 
rhythmic motion in the particle ; and we may con- 
ceive that stellar rhythms might be so modified in 
elongation or other wa3 r s that the structure of the 
system would be destroyed. Hence we may con- 
jecture that in the molecule the rhythms of the 
particles become the structure of the molecule when 
these rhythms are systematic. There is much in the 
phenomena of motion which suggests that such is the 
case. In a previous chapter a brief statement was 
made to exhibit the universality of rhythm. That 
structural motion is always systematic vibration 
seems worthy of acceptation as a working hypothesis. 
The form of force known as energy may appear 
in another phase as a succession of distinct forces 
impinging upon a single body producing effects which 
remain with that. body. Energy in this phase is 



170 TRUTH AND ERROR 

called process; thus a succession of waves of air may 
beat upon a tree and then action and reaction are 
successively involved in vibration. It is a process 
by which gravity deflects the stars into revolutions 
and it must always be a process by which particles 
are deflected while they are incorporated in bodies. 
A multitude of processes appearing in inorganic 
nature have already been exhibited, while processes 
which appear in the vegetal realm were noted. 

In nature processes are developed into modes of 
force known as powers. The meteor falls upon the 
earth and acts as a hammer. Boulders are carried 
by streams and act as hammers and produce effects 
as such which the particles acting separately could 
not produce. Thus collisions which might result 
simply in deflection if the particles acted severally, 
produce fracture when they act conjointly. Particles 
may produce pressure when they act separately, but 
when they act conjointly pressures may lead to 
rupture. By the device of the lever forces are 
multiplied in effect without increase or diminution 
of force as such ; the same is true in the pulley, the 
wedge and the screw. 

All directed motions are motions subjected to con- 
ditions. These conditions are causes which produce 
effects, so that the consequent condition differs 
from the antecedent condition; that is, the effect 
differs from the cause. Two bodies collide and their 
paths are deflected ; the antecedent direction differs 
from the consequent direction. Thus forces are 
motions subjected to causes which produce changes 
of condition which we call effects. Here we see 
again that there can be no motion without causation, 
and while they cannot exist apart, they can be 



COOPERATION 171 

considered separately; but the separation is only 
ideal. 

It is now proposed to give an outline of the forces 
as they appear in the different realms of nature to 
exhibit the universality of cooperation. 

In the ethereal realm we recognize light, magnet- 
ism, heat, gravity and electricity. These are usually 
known as motions which are measured in amplitude 
and rate, and the kinds are distinguished as numeri- 
cally different rates of vibration. Thus classification 
is directly resolved into enumeration, and again num- 
ber is kind. This is illustrated in the classification of 
light as colors which depend upon rates of vibration. 

Something more than motion is manifested by the 
ether. 

Light is the expression of ether as number and 
kind in the colors. Magnetism is the expression of 
space and form in position and direction. Heat is 
the expression of motion as force. Gravity is the 
expression of time as causation. Electricity is the 
expression of affinity as electrolysis. When the 
electric discharge is manifested by the electric 
sparks or the flash of lightning, it is manifested as 
light. Thus ether manifests the pentalogic con- 
comitants both in quantitative and classific properties. 

It manifests these properties by producing effects 
on ponderable matter, which effects appear to the 
senses and to the reasoning faculties as exhibiting 
quantitative and categoric properties ; for example, 
light exhibits number to the mind, and when analyzed 
by the prism it exhibits color or kinds of light. 
Magnetism exhibits space relations in polarity and 
form relations in attraction. Heat exhibits motion 
in the particles of bodies as vibrations which may be 



172 TRUTH AND ERROR 

increased in amplitude until the incorporation of the 
body is destroyed, when only space relations appear. 
Gravity manifests itself in pressure as continuous 
action, which appears as acceleration of speed in the 
falling body and as the cause of the fall. Electrol- 
ysis exhibits decorporation or the dissolution of the 
bonds of affinity, and reincorporation or the estab- 
lishment of new bonds of affinity. 

In the ethereal realm particles in inconceivable 
numbers cooperate in the production of effects in 
multiplied ways. 

In the stellar realm the ethereal forces are found, 
for the stars exhibit the phenomena of light, mag- 
netism, heat, gravity and electricity through the 
medium of the ether, not only because the ether 
surrounds the stellar bodies, but also that it seems to 
permeate them. 

There are molecular forces believed to exist in 
stars as chemism ; but the theater upon which their 
action may be studied is on the surface of the earth. 

The forces exhibited in stars and in the systems of 
which the stars are particles are centripetal and 
centrifugal, as rotatory and revolutional. Gravity 
is a force which acts upon stellar bodies through a 
medium and which is transmuted into rotation and 
revolution and is again manifested in the figures of 
the bodies of the solar system, for they have the 
spheroidal form. 

Thus the ether cooperates with the stellar orbs by 
transmitting light, magnetism, heat, gravity and 
electricity from one to another. These transmis- 
sions are made not by extracting them from one orb 
and transporting them to another as if they were 
bodies, but by inducing the motions in ether by which 



COOPERATION 1 73 

they are expressed, which in turn are induced by the 
ether in the body receiving them as an effect the 
cause of which is in the emitting body. In the 
language of the sciences of the ether the five ethereal 
concomitants are called radiant forces, but perhaps it 
would conduce to sound reasoning if they were des- 
ignated radiant causations. 

So also in the celestial realm body cooperates with 
body. The orbs of the solar system cooperate with 
one another in producing the solar system itself as a 
body, and they cooperate with one another through 
the medium of the ether in radiant causation as 
reciprocal cause and effect. 

In the terrestrial realm the spherical bodies coop- 
erate with one another in producing strains and 
stresses which induce chemical reaction, and thus are 
the cause of the special mode of motion which we 
call chemism. So sphere cooperates with sphere, 
formation with formation, rock with rock, molecule 
with molecule in the reincorporation of mineral sub- 
stances, which is a reincorporation of forces as well 
as of forms. 

Molecules of air cooperate with molecules of air 
in a wind. Molecules of water cooperate with mole- 
cules of water in a rain ; molecules of air and water 
cooperate in a storm, while molecules of air, water 
and particles of dust cooperate with one another that 
vapor may be transformed into water antecedent to 
the storm. Molecules of water cooperate with 
molecules of water to constitute the stream, the cur- 
rent, the wave and the glacier, while molecules of 
rock cooperate in the boulder as it grinds its way, 
cooperating with other rocks in corrading the 
channel. 



174 TRUTH AND ERROR 

The terrestrial spheres cooperate with one another 
in all geological processes. Upheaval and sub- 
sidence with flexure and faulting are produced by 
the cooperation of the nucleus in yielding to pressure 
derived from the building of formations with material 
transported by the river, which was disintegrated by 
the action of rain which fell as storm blown by the 
wind caused by unequal temperatures induced by the 
ether caused by the heat of the sun. Endless illus- 
trations can be given of cooperation in the terrestrial 
realm. 

In the vegetal realm by the cooperation of pro- 
toplasmic particles chemical force is transformed 
into vital force and processes cooperate with one 
another in the same body. The process of absorp- 
tion by the rootlets cooperates with the process of 
transportation to the leaves, and here they both 
cooperate with the process of transpiration, and 
these cooperate with the processes of osmosis in the 
redistribution of the materials to the growing parts, 
and these again cooperate with the process of 
assimilation where the growth takes place, and all 
of these processes cooperate with the process of 
reproduction by which the seed is formed. 

Beside the cooperation in production above noticed, 
an additional cooperation is discovered in the higher 
forms, where individuals cooperate as sexes in their 
reproductive function. The vegetal forces cooperate 
with terrestrial forces in the disintegration of rocks 
into soils, in which function they also cooperate with 
chemism, gravity, and ethereal force. Thus coopera- 
tion in the vegetal realm extends throughout the 
universe. 

In the zoonomic realm all other forces of nature 



COOPERATION 1 75 

cooperate with the forces of animal life to accomplish 
motility. That the organism itself is a system of 
cooperating powers in which the function of every 
organ is necessary to the continuance of the func- 
tion of the others is commonplace doctrine. 

First we note that metabolism consists of two 
correlative systems, one of anabolism, the other of 
catabolism ; that is, the one builds up, the other tears 
down. They are not only correlative, but to a large 
extent they are contemporaneous. In fact, there can 
be no building up without tearing down ; that is, no 
placement which is not displacement, except that 
material may be stored adjacent to organs as fatty 
substances, to be used as needed after it has thus 
been stored. 

In the animal body functional cooperation becomes 
still more efficient by more thorough specialization, 
when multiple like organs of like functions are 
eradicated. 

In animal life the body is moved by the differ- 
entiated movements of its component parts. The 
body as a particle moves by impact from external 
influences in the higher incorporation of the earth, 
but it also moves as an individual by the differentia- 
tion of its own internal movements ideally deter- 
mined. This force is motility as it is exhibited in 
all locomotion, by which we mean all motions of the 
parts of the body which are directly related to the 
environment by which the whole body or any part 
of the body may be carried from one place to 
another. 

Through motility the property of judgment 
becomes the guide of the animal body, determining 
the movements of the parts, stimulating the function 



176 TRUTH AND ERROR 

of one organ, inhibiting the function of another and 
causing them all to cooperate to a mentally deter- 
mined end. Judgment thus controls function and 
through it produces locomotion, by which the parts 
of the body are changed in relation to one another, 
and by this power of changing the place of parts 
the power of changing the place of the whole is 
accomplished in the more restricted sense expressed 
by the term locomotion. Thus we make a distinc- 
tion between vitality as a method of molecular 
motion and motility as a method of organic motion 
directed by opposing or correlative muscles, motility 
being thus directed by contraction and relaxation, 
which results in all forms of locomotion. In this 
manner food is masticated, swallowed, and moved 
along the intestinal canal and delivered to the cir- 
culatory system by appropriate muscles; then it is 
taken up by the circulatory system and moved by 
the heart with certain accessory muscles, and as 
the circulation proceeds excretory materials are 
discharged, all by appropriate muscles. There are 
also muscles for the movement of the limbs, all 
adapted to locomotion. Then there are muscles 
necessary for the reproductive functions and finally 
there are muscles for the movement of organs of 
sense. All of the motions thus indicated in a sum- 
mary manner are the result of the forces which we 
call motility to distinguish it from vitality, which is 
molecular force. Motility is controlled by metab- 
olism, and is the metabolism of opposing muscles 
where one contracts and the other relaxes. The 
reason for explaining contraction and relaxation in 
this manner was set forth in a previous chapter. 
We thus see how the processes of metabolism and 



COOPERATION 177 

motility cooperate. We also see that all of the 
organs of one system, as that of digestion, or that of 
circulation and excretion, cooperate. We also see 
that systems cooperate with systems. Finally it 
must be noted that all of the other systems cooperate 
under the direction of the nervous system, and are 
thus obedient to mind, being under the control of 
volition, which is choice of activity, which is the choice 
of affinity — the mutual selection of particles of 
matter for molecular association. If all of this 
reasoning is valid, affinity is molecular choice in the 
animate body, and we may hence conclude that all 
affinity is molecular choice, as it seems to be, for 
chemists who do not ignore affinity never find any 
other way of rendering the facts into language. So 
that affinity is practically synonymous with selection. 
I will to cross the street, I will to walk, I will to set 
the organs of walking in motion, and I accomplish 
it by controlling the affinities of molecules in metab- 
olism. Thus a system of organs has been developed 
by which muscular metabolism may be accomplished 
by a constant supply of new material for anabolism, 
and a constant discharge of waste material by catab- 
olism. 

We cannot conceive or express these facts in any- 
way except by teleologic concepts. It is now a 
fundamental doctrine of evolution that the organism 
is developed through the accumulation of effects by 
individuals in successive generations. Not that each 
individual in the hereditary line has such a concept 
of the future that he could foretell the ultimate result, 
but that he had such a concept of the immediate 
future that he purposely planned and executed 
immediate action, and while a perfect state was not 



178 TRUTH AND ERROR 

known so that every action was the right action for 
the ultimate benefit of the race, yet the judgments 
of action were usually judgments of immediate 
benefit to be derived, and these judgments resulted 
in action, whether good or evil, for of necessity they 
were followed by action without waiting for their 
verification by experience. We have already seen 
that judgments of intellection do not become judg- 
ments of cognition until they are verified. Judg- 
ments of action result in immediate action, and are 
verified after the act only when they appear as senti- 
ments of good or evil to control the will. 

Let us see how this control of the functions is 
accomplished, and what part the different portions 
of the system take in the mental activities as they 
control the mechanical action. The brain seems to be 
the organ of mentation, but there are ganglia in the 
different mechanical organs which take a subordinate 
part in the general system of mentation in locally 
controlling motility by exciting or inhibiting activity. 
It is not necessary that the brain should deal with 
every muscle, but only with general ideas of action, 
while the ganglia control the details of activity, for 
there is a hierarchy of authorities which ramify to 
every cell particle in the system. Thus the brain 
has the means of inciting metabolism in every 
particle of the body. This is the machinery of habit 
by which customary actions are rendered apparently 
automatic. By an analogous process of reasoning 
we must conclude that every particle of matter in the 
system has judgment as consciousness and inference, 
and that these judgments are transmitted by the 
sensory nerves to ganglia in a collecting hierarchy 
which finally reaches the brain. The organs of sense 



COOPERATION 179 

sending their judgments by the sensory nerves from 
the exterior, the organ of feeling from the interior, 
and we are compelled to infer that every particle of 
matter in the animate body has judgment ; and that 
in the organs of sense they have judgments of cog- 
nition, but in the mechanical organs they have judg- 
ments of good and evil. Then we may consistently 
infer that the ganglia are organs of conception, and 
we come back to the statement that the brain is the 
organ of mentation, which does not deal with judg- 
ments individually, but only with concepts. 

In reaction animals cooperate with plants, rocks, 
orbs and ethereal bodies. The systems of coopera- 
tion of which we have made mention are developed 
into a higher sphere, and a new mode is discovered 
in human activities, as every man cooperates with 
his environment. We have seen how in motility the 
internal motions of the body are converted into 
external motions by deforming the body itself. By 
motility as expressed in locomotion, the animal body 
can change the relation of its parts, and thus of the 
whole body in relation to external parts, while all 
such changes of relation are in obedience to mind. 
The animal body, therefore, can move itself in rela- 
tion to external bodies in a limited manner, and can 
thus impinge upon them and cooperate with external 
bodies at will. 

In the cooperation of animal with animal, societies 
are organized. These societies are highly developed 
and best illustrated in human life. Men, through 
activities, cooperate with other men. We thus have • 
a vast assemblage of cooperations, but in these activi- 
ties the man must necessarily cooperate with plants, 
rocks, orbs, and ether as well as with other men. 



l8o TRUTH AND ERROR 

The activities in which men engage are all designed 
to accomplish purposes, and in order that these ends 
may be reached, man invents by minute increments 
sundry agencies by which they may more adequately 
be reached. In order that we may understand this 
subject, consider the purposes to be accomplished. 
By a careful examination of all human activities and 
the purposes directly subserved, it will be found that 
they are naturally grouped in five classes. First, 
man pursues pleasure, and those things which give 
him pleasure are sought. These are the ambrosial, 
decorative, athletic, divinatory, and fine-art pleas- 
ures. Second, man naturally pursues welfare in length 
of life and abundance of health, and seeks to avoid 
disease and death. By these are produced those 
activities which are called industries. Under indus- 
tries we have to consider kind, form, force, history 
and purpose. Third, for pleasure and welfare man 
has found it well to associate, and to promote these 
associations he finds it necessary to regulate conduct. 
He therefore naturally pursues justice, and that 
gives rise to institutions which are constitutive, 
legislative, executive, operative, and judicative. This 
leads to a fourth form of activity, which again divides 
into two forms, activity of expression and activity of 
reception. Thus it is that man invents languages 
which are emotional, gestural, oral, written, and 
technical. Fifth ; but man in the pursuit of pleasure, 
welfare, justice and expression discovers that he 
makes many mistakes, and that pain, misery, injus- 
tice and misunderstanding are secured instead of the 
desired ends. He thus finds it advisable to pursue 
wisdom, and organizes the necessary agencies. 
Therefore these are the agencies for the increase and 



COOPERATION l8l 

diffusion of knowledge, observation, acculturation, 
education, publication and research ; for this diffusion 
it becomes necessary to teach and to learn; so 
research and instruction appear and become pursuits 
of life for wisdom. These pursuits of wisdom imply 
both teaching and learning. 

Now, we have pleasure, welfare, justice, expres- 
sion, and wisdom as the purpose of the five grand 
classes of activities. These activities are indis- 
solubly associated, for it is found that one end 
cannot be accomplished without accomplishing them 
all. The act which is designed for pleasure becomes 
pain if it does not conduce to welfare; the act 
designed for welfare may decrease life if justice is 
not secured. The pursuit of justice may result in 
injustice if truth is neglected. The end pursued for 
truth may lead to error if wisdom is not reached. 
All of the permutations between pleasure, wel- 
fare, justice, expression and wisdom may be ex- 
amined, and forever it will be found that they 
are indissolubly connected, and must cooperate 
in order that the end may be reached by the in- 
dividual. 

At the same time the individuals have their 
activities differentiated, so that the labors of every 
man are to a greater or less extent distinguished 
from the labors of every other man in every organ- 
ized society. All of this differentiation of labor upon 
which the highest civilization depends illustrates in 
the most forcible manner the nature of cooperation, 
for society itself is organized upon the theory of 
cooperating activities. 

In these activities men not only cooperate with 
one another, but they individually and collectively 






/' 



1 82 TRUTH AND ERROR 

cooperate with nature, and thus external nature is 
made to assist man. 

The club is but an instrument to cooperate with 
the hand to increase its efficiency. The flail is but 
a club with a handle for increased efficiency. The 
thresher is but a group of clubs placed upon a 
cylinder and made to revolve to increase efficiency. 
The snow-shoe is but an addition to the foot to 
increase its efficiency. The sled is but an improved 
snow-shoe. The wagon is but an improved sled, 
and the railroad train but an improved wagon. The 
lens is but an improvement to the eye, and the 
telescope is but an improved lens, and the microscope 
still another improved lens. There would be no end 
to the illustrations which could be cited to show the 
manner in which the arts of man cooperate with one 
another and with man himself. 



CHAPTER XIII 



EVOLUTION 



We are now to consider what happens to particles 
with the passage of time. At the outset we must 
consider what it is that has persistence and change. 
The particle has five manifestations as five essential 
concomitants or constituents: unity, extension, 
speed, persistence, and consciousness. As all the 
concomitants inhere in one particle and the particle 
is unity, extension, speed, persistence, and conscious- 
ness, the concept of a particle not having all of these 
essentials is a pseudo-idea. If any one of them is 
taken away from a particle it is annihilated, for there 
is nothing else in. the particle but these essentials. 
They constitute the particle. 

By abstraction we consider essentials severally, and 
when we consider the relation of particles we still 
consider the relation of essentials severally. The 
relations of essentials are properties. One con- 
comitant in one particle cannot be related to the 
same concomitant in another particle without a 
relation existing between the other concomitants of 
the particles ; that is, there cannot be a relation of 
one unity to another without a relation of one exten- 
sion to another, one speed to another, one persistence 
to another, and one consciousness to another, if the 
particles be animate. If we go on to consider per- 
sistence abstractly, we must still remember that the 
persistence is the persistency of- a unity, an extension, 
a speed, and a consciousness. But between these 

183 



184 TRUTH AND ERROR 

persistent concomitants there are relations, and these 
relations are changeable ; so when we consider per- 
sistence and change, it is the persistence of particles 
of essentials and change of relations of particles of 
essentials. Only relations are changeable, essentials 
are persistent. 

By abstraction we consider essentials severally, 
and when we consider the relation of particles we 
still consider the relation of essentials severally. If 
we go on to consider persistence abstractly, we must 
still remember that the persistence is the persistence 
of a unity, an extension, a speed, and a con- 
sciousness. 

He who cannot distinguish between concomitancy 
and relativity cannot follow this argument and cannot 
understand its fundamental doctrines. He who can- 
not follow up this distinction in all of its logical 
results under the conditions of complexity which are 
exhibited in the various bodies of the universe con- 
sidered by scientific men, had better devote his time 
to metaphysical speculation where logical distinctions 
are confused and fine-spun theories of the unknown 
are the substance of philosophy; for scientific men 
deal with simple facts, though they may be tangled in 
relations, while metaphysicians confessedly deal in 
speculation about the unknown and boldly affirm 
that realities are fallacies. When a scientific man 
speaks of phenomena, he speaks of the manifestations 
of reality; when a metaphysician speaks of phe- 
nomena he speaks of manifestations of the unknown 
reality of which he dreams, while he deems that 
the realities of the scientific man are creations of 
fancy. In science all knowledge is verity and all 
fallacies are false inferences. In metaphysics all 



EVOLUTION 185 

knowledge is illusion which manifests in a vague 
way an unknown reality. 

If particles could exist without speed there would 
be no change and no motion ; or if there was but one 
particle with speed there would be only rectilineal 
motion, but as there are many particles with speed 
they collide and deflect one another ; deflected speed 
is directed motion. The first phase of directed 
motion is thus change of direction in free particles. 
Here we have persistence in speed and change in 
direction by which persistence is divided into 
portions by events of collision, and this manifests 
time. There could be no time without motion, and 
no motion without space, and no space without 
number. The first or simplest manifestation of 
time is the division of motion into parts by events. 
This gives us the simplest concept of time known to 
science, and whenever in science time is considered, 
some motion is divided into parts by events. Thus 
the motion of the earth about the sun is divided 
into annual parts by events, and the motion of 
the earth on its axis is divided into daily parts by 
events. 

By the incorporation of particles into bodies the 
speed of the particle is divided into parts, one part 
of the speed inhering in the particle as internal 
motion, another part inhering in the particle as 
external motion of the body. The speed of the 
particle is composed of internal speed and external 
or corporeal speed. 

In bodies we consider the corporeal speed, and one 
body may have greater speed than another, although 
one ultimate particle cannot have greater speed than 
another. It is the speed of one body measured in 



l86 TRUTH AND ERROR 

terms of the speed of another by which time is 
usually determined. 

Particle speed is persistent or eternal. Corporeal 
speed can continue only while the body remains 
incorporate. So essentials are co-eternal in the 
particle, but are co-etaneous in the body. 

When we consider the collision of one body with 
another we may consider the action as a force, and 
if the particles remain without change of incorpora- 
tion, action and reaction are exhibited as mutual 
deflection. When we neglect the nature of this 
deflection we are considering the forces involved, 
but if we consider results and compare the paths of 
the bodies before collision with the paths after 
collision, we pass from the consideration of force to 
causation, for the cause of their collision was their 
incident paths and the effect of collision their 
reflected paths. 

Thus the study of time as exhibited by bodies 
leads to the study of causation. So in causation 
we have more highly related time. If we consider 
relations of persistence and change in the particle, 
we consider it as time, but if we consider it in the 
body we consider it as causation. Time and causa- 
tion are thus reciprocal. 

There are different kinds of natural bodies besides 
the one ethereal body of all ethereal particles; (i) 
the celestial bodies of molecular particles; (2) the 
terrestrial bodies or spheres of petrologic particles, 
in which certain of the molecular particles are for- 
ever undergoing reincorporation ; (3) vegetal bodies 
which are still more ephemeral and reincorporated 
from the mineral kingdom to exist only for a time and 
then to be returned to the mineral kingdom ; (4) ani- 



EVOLUTION 187 

mal bodies which are incorporated from the vegetal 
kingdom ; (5) societies which are ideally incorporated. 

In this incorporation they exhibit successions of 
causations; but causations are processes, and one 
abstract process cannot exist without the concomitant 
processes — that is, there can be no processes of 
causation without processes of force, form, and kind, 
together with processes of mind. 

We know little of the reincorporation of stars, but 
we know much about the reincorporation of rocks, 
plants, animals, and societies. The study of incor- 
poration and reincorporation is evolution from the 
standpoint of causation, which in turn is the study 
of time. 

The consideration of the totality of changes occur- 
ring in the universe is evolution. These changes can 
all be resolved into changes in the position of the 
ultimate particle of matter. Directed changes in 
position lead to incorporation, then incorporation is 
succeeded by reincorporation, and the totality of 
these changes is the totality of evolution. Starting 
with this concept we may be able to redefine evolu- 
tion in a more satisfactory manner at a later stage. 

If there were no motion there would be no time 
but only persistence. If there were no incorporation 
and reincorporation there would be no evolution but 
only time as it is exhibited in the ethereal particle. 
At the very outset, then, we have to consider incor- 
poration in the association of one chemical particle 
with another. 

The theater of the motion of every ethereal particle 
must be circumscribed by the theater of the adjacent 
particles ; we are logically prohibited from any other 
conclusion. When particles unite with one another 



l88 TRUTH AND ERROR 

in constituting a body, so that the speeds are divided 
into internal and external motions, by virtue of the 
external motion, they may change their space rela- 
tions to external particles. In order that there may 
be bodies with changeable environment the particles 
must, by some means or another, associate. The 
first cause or method of evolution is choice'; the first 
effect of evolution is change of environment. 
From this datum point we may go on to dis- 
cuss the evolution of the laws or methods of 
evolution. 

Affinity is choice of association in atoms and 
molecules by which new kinds are developed by the 
development of new orders of units through their 
incorporation into one body. This is illustrated in 
the conventional numbers where the ten units of 
one order constitute one of a higher order. Again, 
the bricks of a house, thousands in number, con- 
stitute one house in a body of a higher order. Now 
the atoms of a molecule are associated by affinity, 
which surely resembles choice of association, though 
it may be the choice of dominant particles or mutual 
choice ; but in the bricks which constitute the house 
their association is the choice of volition in the 
builder, by the choice of activities in the control of 
his muscles. This choice of activity still relates 
back to a choice in the reciprocal processes of me- 
tabolism, which again is affinity. Thus external 
choice is controlled by mind through internal choice. 

The primal law of evolution seems to be psychic. 
We shall call it the law of affinity and define it as 
the choice of particles to associate in bodies. The 
facts observed in the chemical incorporation of 
particles into bodies are explained by this hypothesis, 



EVOLUTION 189 

but they remain the same whether the explanation 
be valid or invalid, that is, whether we consider 
affinity to be due to psychic choice or to some 
unknown mechanical property. 

By the incorporation of atoms into molecules 
particles become bodies which react in collisions 
with the environment in a new manner ; thus bodies 
can perform functions which particles cannot perform. 
This leads us to the consideration of incorporation as 
organization, when functions and organs as con- 
comitants are transmuted together. Molecules, 
because they are incorporated numbers, are organ- 
ized numbers, or in other terms, chemical organiza- 
tion by incorporation is numerical organization. 
Now we must see what these new functions or 
reactions are. 

Molecules of substances are aggregated into stellar 
bodies by their mutual reactions through the gravitat- 
ing medium — the ether. Thus a second method of 
evolution is developed which is known as adaptation 
to environment. By this method not only are the 
celestial bodies incorporated into higher units, but 
their forms are subsequently controlled by the same 
law when they yield to the forces of the environ- 
ment as spheroidal figures, rotating and revolving as 
fluid bodies. Stars are evolved under the law of 
adaptation to environment and remain under its 
control in their changing figures through the history 
of their revolutions. 

Under this law stars change their environment, 
passing through a succession of positions in a cycle 
of revolution. This seems to be a valid statement 
of the changes brought about by the incorporation 
of atoms into molecules, and their further incorpora- 



190 TRUTH AND ERROR 

tion into stars, and their still further incorporation 
as stars into systems. 

In celestial bodies we know only of the fluid state 
of matter as revealed by astronomy. While there may 
be solid bodies in the other orbs, as in the earth, 
astronomical investigation does not reveal them to 
research as solids; such solid bodies are recognized 
to be studied only in the earth, where they are 
revealed as rocks, and if they may exist in the other 
orbs the science of astronomy does not deal with 
them. The forms of the stellar bodies are those 
assumed by fluids under the force of gravity. The 
stars themselves are particles in systems which are 
bodies of a higher order. Events are discovered in 
the motions of the celestial orbs and exhibited in a 
great variety of ways as set forth in the science of 
astronomy. 

Thus states of motion are divided into events of 
motion. The states are represented by rotation of 
body, which is the revolution of particles, while 
events are marked by phenomena which attend the 
rotation and revolution. These are phenomena of 
time, or persistence and change. Then the heavenly 
bodies are constantly changing their relations to one 
another, and a vast system of perturbations are 
discovered. Motion at apogee differs from motion 
at perigee, motion at aphelion differs from motion 
at perihelion, and a great variety of perturbations of 
path are revealed. Here we study causation. 
Finally, the genesis of the heavenly bodies is studied 
as their evolution. 

LaPlace was the founder of this department of 
astronomy. The researches in this realm had 
revealed the common direction of motion in the orbs 



EVOLUTION 191 

of the solar system, the small eccentricities of path, 
the inclination of the orbits, and the conservation of 
areas. Reasoning- that contraction would accelerate 
rotation and hence oblateness, he conceived the 
hypothesis of the evolution of the solar system on 
the theory of the radiation of heat into solar space 
from a nebulous mass. He conceived that this mass, 
revolving in an orbit, constantly accelerating and thus 
constantly increasing its oblateness, would thus 
gradually retire by attraction from an external ring 
of matter which would ultimately break up into one 
or more orbicular bodies. 

Since the time of LaPlace his method of account- 
ing for satellites as a breaking up of rings has been 
questioned, and facts have been discovered that give 
ground to the conjecture that other methods of 
separation into bodies by fission are not only possible 
but even probable. This new doctrine arises from 
the investigation of binary stars. It will be observed 
that LaPlace 's theory was an attempt to harmonize 
many diverse laws discovered by induction and 
verified by deduction, by accounting for them all by 
one fundamental doctrine of evolution, which is no 
other than the adaptation of every particle of matter 
to the conditions imposed upon it by every other 
particle in the environment. Under this hypothesis 
LaPlace promulgated a doctrine of evolution which, 
in its fundamental elements, has remained to the 
present, notwithstanding the tests of observation and 
recomputation to which it has been submitted, 
though minor components of the doctrine are ques- 
tioned. 

There is still another assumption of LaPlace that 
must now be questioned, as it is unnecessary to his 



192 TRUTH AND ERROR 

argument and incongruous with facts herein demon- 
strated; his assumption is that heat is radiated into 
space and that it leaves the cooling body to join 
external bodies. All of this was quite compatible 
with the concept in vogue in his time, when heat 
corpuscles were supposed to be itinerant from body- 
to body. Now we know that heat is not a special 
form of matter, but is only a deflection of the 
motions of the particles of matter whose speeds are 
constant, and that one body causes heat in another 
but does not yield heat as speed of particles so that 
it loses what the other gains. While the heat of one 
body induces heat in another, no motion as speed 
leaves the cooling body, but its reaction transmutes 
the heat motion into the structural motion of the 
body and that reaction which we call the transfer of 
heat from one body to another is in fact its equili- 
bration through mutual transmutation. 

Thus, by the theory of LaPlace, the chemical 
changes proceeding in the combination of atomic 
particles existing in the nebulous mass were 
accelerated by gravity until they were consolidated 
into stellar bodies, the process being a succession of 
recombinations in molecules of higher orders. 

In the geonomic realm three so-called states of 
substance are found : the ethereal, the fluid, and the 
solid. All of these states are conditions of incorpora- 
tion. Gases may become liquids and liquids may 
become solids, and vice versa, by progressive incor- 
poration and reincorporation. These states of sub- 
stance often exhibit interesting critical points in which 
secular changes are accelerated by sudden meta- 
genesis, especially at critical points of temperature 
and pressure. Thus changes of state are secular 



EVOLUTION 193 

metageneses accelerated in sudden metageneses. 
Everywhere and forever the states are changing by 
events and the geonomic realm is forever in flux. 
The winds are in motion, the waters are in waves, 
tides and currents, and the waters themselves are 
evaporated and move in clouds through the air and 
are condensed into streams that flow into the great 
bodies of water and into the ocean itself. The fluid 
waters are transformed into solid, and the solid are 
gathered at high altitudes and high latitudes into 
great bodies of ice that are forever growing, melt- 
ing, and moving forward. The solid rocks are forever 
undergoing geologic changes under the stress and 
strain produced ; thus molar metamorphosis is forever 
in progress. The rocks are carried from the land 
to the sea and the sea-bottoms are upheaved, while 
mechanical changes are forever in progress through- 
out the solid envelope. States appear to be changed 
into other states only by events which come in 
winds, storms, earthquakes, and fires. 

That which we are to note as germane to this argu- 
ment is that there are three states of matter involved 
in the study of geonomy : the ethereal state in which 
the phenomena of heat and electricity are observed, 
the fluid state, and the solid state in which the 
especial phenomenon of the geonomic orb — the earth 
— is observed. As in the stars we are compelled to 
discuss ethereality, terrestrial heat, light, electricity, 
magnetism, and gravity, together with centripetal and 
centrifugal force and fluidity, so in the geonomic 
realm we must study not only the same subjects, 
but must also consider the solid condition with the 
stresses and strains involved and the metageneses 
that appear through chemism. 



194 TRUTH AND ERROR 

In the ethereal realm we know of the ethereal 
state ; in the stellar realm we know of the ethereal 
and the fluid states ; in the geonomic realm we know 
of the ethereal, the fluid, and the solid states. 

In the study of the earth a differentiation is found 
in the air, the sea, the land, and the nucleus. They 
are also integrated by the rotation of the earth, which 
is the revolution of its particles. The air is imper- 
fectly differentiated into winds. The waters are 
differentiated into seas with gulfs, lakes with bays, 
and rivers with creeks, brooks, and rills. Then the 
waters are evaporated and differentiated into vapor, 
and these vapors become clouds and the clouds 
become rains. Then the waters that were evapo- 
rated into vapor and condensed into rain are also 
frozen into snow and ice, and ice itself plays an 
important part in the mechanical changes wrought 
upon the surface of the earth. Then the solid 
sphere is differentiated into formations, and the 
formations into rocks or blocks, and these again into 
crystals and grains; then the rocks are ground by 
the running waters and blown by the winds and 
distributed through the air and over the land as dust. 
They are also carried by the waters into the sea and 
deposited in formations, and finally they are carried 
in solution by the interpenetrating waters into the 
crevices of the rocks, by which blocks are parted. 
Finally, fluid masses from the molten interior are 
thrust into the rocks in dykes, chimneys, and 
lacolites, and spread over the surface in coulees, 
cinders, and dust. All of this commingling of 
materials results in a recombination of substances 
ever found to be more and more highly com- 
pound. At the surface of the earth these changes 



EVOLUTION I95 

are still further multiplied in the production of 
soils, which is accomplished by the wash of rains, 
the grinding of ice, the chemical decomposition 
of the rock, especially aided by heating and 
cooling, together with the disintegration that 
arises from the action of plants and animals upon 
the soil, and by the commingling of their bodies 
with it, so that a highly compound mass of particles 
is produced, known as the soil. This soil is the 
theater of chemical changes by which the more 
highly compound molecules are developed, necessary 
directly to vegetation and indirectly to animal life. 
As chemical compounds are more sensitive to change, 
mineral forms are more sensitive to metamorphosis, 
and as mineral and molar forms are changed proc- 
esses are multiplied and become more efficient in 
the production of change. Thus the new law of 
evolution which we find in the geonomic realm, is 
the acceleration of change by increasing hetero- 
geneity. It may be called the method of hetero- 
geneity. 

The law of affinity and the law of adaptation 
found in the astronomic realm also pertain to the 
geonomic realm. But to them there is added this 
new law of heterogeneity. Thus an incessant meta- 
logosis, metamorphosis, and metaphysisis results 
in universal, constant, and multifarious metageneses. 

As substances become more compound they 
become less stable, and acceleration of heterogeneity 
is the acceleration of metagenesis. 

In the phytonomic realm, that is, in plants, a 
fourth state of substance is found. This is the vital 
state, for plants have life. Substance in the fluid 
and solid states is taken up by the plant through the 



I96 TRUTH AND ERROR 

medium of the ethereal state exhibited in light and 
heat and metagenetically changed into the fourth 
state as vitality. These metagenetic changes are 
known as assimilation, by which the plant is pro- 
duced. Plant growth is secular, and the materials 
pass through the fluid state into the living state, 
which is growth; the plant may then dissolve 
secularly by decay, or by sudden change in com- 
bustion. 

We cannot understand the plant without a con- 
sideration of all the four states of matter and all the 
four changes of matter which occur therein as events. 
As the plant grows, minute molecules are added ; as 
the plant decays, minute molecules are taken away, 
as the vital changes observed. 

Vitality as a state first finds expression in the 
continued growth of the plant, and a still higher 
expression in the heredity of the species, for the state 
is continued from plant to germ through the germ in 
life and growth to reproduction, where it again 
appears in the new germ. Thus we are compelled to 
consider the vital conditions of heredity. The meta- 
genetic changes of the individual are bequeathed to 
its posterity, and the environmental changes of the 
individual are wrought into its structure and these 
again are bequeathed within more or less restricted 
limits. Thus in the study of the plant we study a 
new state of substance, and new changes are here 
events in the history of the individual, transferred 
by heredity to its offspring. In the consideration 
of the development of germs into adult individuals, 
the accomplishment of the process is ontogeny. 
In the consideration of the development of indi- 
viduals in generations by which the race is 



EVOLUTION 197 

evolved, we may consider the result reached as 
phylogeny. 

In this realm the law of the acceleration of evolu- 
tion is the one discovered by Darwin and known as the 
survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. 
Plants multiply by germs, and more germs are 
produced than can possibly find room on the surface 
of the earth when developed into adults. Plants 
multiply by hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thou- 
sands and perhaps even millions; some mast perish 
by inexorable conditions, and the few that arrive at 
maturity are those best adapted to the local environ- 
ment where they live; but the germs themselves 
have their environments changed by mechanical 
agencies, as on winds, waves and streams, and they 
are often carried about by animals. This change of 
environment modifies the plants themselves in such 
a manner that varieties are developed which ulti- 
mately become species. 

The evolution of plants is fundamentally chemical 
under the law of affinity; it is accelerated by 
adaptation to environment; it is then subject to the 
law of acceleration by heterogeneity, and evolution 
is still further accelerated by the survival of the 
fittest. 

In animal life a fifth state of substance is found 
which I call motility. In this state all the other 
states are found: ethereal, fluid, solid, and vital. 
Changes which occur as events in the history of 
motility are collisions and metageneses in the 
ethereal, fluid, solid, and vital states, but to them is 
added a series of changes which are expressed in 
motility. In the animal, anabolism and catabolism 
are contemporaneous, as the animal has coeval 



198 TRUTH AND ERROR 

growth and decay; anabolism and catabolism then 
become metabolism. The dual processes of meta- 
geneses, which are evolution and dissolution, are now 
combined so long as life lasts. In rest, and especially 
in sleep, anabolism may progress at a greater rate 
than catabolism ; in exercise, and especially in violent 
exercise, catabolism may prevail, but neither can 
wholly cease while the motile state endures. Here, 
in the state of motility, ontogeny appears in the 
individual and phylogeny in the race. 

In attempting to define the states of substance a 
precaution is necessary. It must be understood that 
the states of matter do not always appear to be 
separated by hard and fast planes of demarcation ; 
and so far as we can assert with confidence, there 
seems to be a gap between ether and ponderable 
matter, though a complete recognition of the ether 
is but an event of the present day. The gaseous 
and liquid states are included in the fluid state. 
Between the fluid and the solid states intervening 
conditions are fotind. 

It is known that no perfect distinction can 
be made between the solid and the vital state. 
There are those who believe that an impassable 
barrier exists between them, but this doctrine is 
rapidly being dispelled; indeed it is no exaggeration 
to say that scientific men rather confidently believe 
that the barrier is soon to be thrown down. That 
the barrier between vitality and motility has been 
overthrown is believed by many biologists, though 
there are still those who believe that the apparent 
consciousness of plants as exhibited in a great 
variety of phenomena can be explained as mechanical 
phenomena. If this lingering belief be true, the 



EVOLUTION I99 

barrier still exists ; but there is no ontogenic barrier 
even if there be a phylogenic barrier. 

In the motile state of matter the special law of 
evolution was discovered by Lamarck. It is the law 
of effort, and may be stated as the development of 
organs by exercise and their extirpation by disuse. 
It must be remembered that all the other laws of 
evolution apply to the animal and that this new law 
is added in the motile state. Sometimes the law of 
heredity is called a law of evolution, but in fact it 
is the law of the continuation of species both vegetal 
and animal, and is not a law of evolution. 

In the animal the law of affinity still appears 
in metabolism as fundamental, for by metabolism 
the development of the organ is accomplished and 
without it there could be no effort. 

The animal is adapted to environment by many 
ways, especially in the development of agencies for 
accommodation to climate, as in the down of birds, 
the fur of animals, and in various protective devices as 
external coverings exhibited in the shells and shards 
of the lower animals. But the animal adapts itself to 
environment in another manner: endowed with 
locomotion, it seeks a favorable environment best 
adapted to protection and best adapted to supply 
stores of food. 

The animal is still subject to the law of hetero- 
geneity, for the multiplication of heterogeneous 
characteristics adapts it to heterogeneous conditions 
of environment, and so the limitations to the multi- 
plication of adults are largely thrown down. 

The animal also is subject to the law of survival, 
for notwithstanding the utilization of every possi- 
ble environment for every variety, there is yet 



^ 



200 TRUTH AND ERROR 

an overmultiplication of individuals, which must 
perish. 

Upon these laws supervenes the law of effort 
by which organs are developed on various lines for 
various conditions of environment, and the result of 
this organic evolution leads to the survival of those 
best adapted. In animal life evolution is by affinity, 
adaptation, heterogeneity, survival, and effort. 
The first of these methods is the basis while the 
others are successive accelerations, so that the 
changes wrought in the animal are progressive in 
geometrical ratio by the compounding of all the 
factors. 

Another factor in evolution appears in the organ- 
ization of demotic life which may be observed among 
those of the lower animals in which societies are 
found, appearing among mankind and becoming the 
chief factor in civilized life. It is a method of 
evolution to which inadequate attention has been 
given, and the failure to recognize it has led to mis- 
apprehension of the nature of human evolution and 
to preposterous claims for the efficiency in mankind 
of the laws of evolution found among lower animals. 
This mode of evolution, therefore, needs more 
elaborate presentation than that which we have 
already given for the other laws. By man in 
civilization the law of effort is transmuted into the 
law of culture, the method of invention; that is, 
the effort is designed effort for the purpose of 
improving human conditions. The chemical law 
still remains valid, but the exercise of organs is ever 
from age to age. century to century, and even 
decade to decade concentrated upon one special 
system of organs. Of the five systems, that which 



EVOLUTION 20I 

has the function of thought and which is the nervous 
system is ever more and more exercised, until metab- 
olism itself is accelerated to such a degree that the 
changes in the nervous system are far more rapid 
than in either of the other four systems. Thus 
human evolution comes to be mental evolution, and 
this mental evolution is the product of culture by 
invention. 

The law of culture transforms and then absorbs 
the law of adaptation, the law of heterogeneity, the 
law of survival, and finally the law of effort. In 
what manner this transformation and absorption 
are effected must be explained. In man adaptation 
to environment is transmuted into the adaptation of 
environment to man. Man is not adapted to food, 
but food is adapted to man by culture. New foods 
are developed until many are used. The animals 
which furnish food are cultivated and multiplied 
under the direction of man. Vegetal foods are 
in like manner multiplied and cultivated in vast 
fields, vineyards, orchards, and gardens, and new 
varieties are forever developed by the skill of man. 

Man is not adapted to the environment of climate, 
but he adapts the climate to himself ; when it is too 
cold he kindles a fire, and he protects himself when 
away from the fire by clothing; when it is too wet 
he covers himself with a roof ; when it is too windy 
he protects himself with walls; thus man does not 
develop down like the birds, or wool like the 
mammals, or carapaces like the turtles. Man does 
not develop fins for life in the water, but he con- 
structs boats that he may dwell on the sea. Man 
does not become a climber to live on the trees, but 
he ascends the trees on ladders and he fells the trees 



202 TRUTH AND ERROR 

for temples. Man does not seek shelter among the 
rocks, but he quarries the rocks and builds palaces. 
Man does not burrow in the ground, but he molds 
and burns the clay and constructs marts of trade. 
Man does not develop eyes that he may live in the 
dark, but he invents lightning light that night may 
become day. The illustrations of the change of 
adaptation from man himself to the environment 
may be found in endless profusion. There is a 
change wrought in man by all these agencies, but it 
is a change in his mind exhibited in the develop- 
ment of the organ of mind and the concomitant 
development of thought. 

The law of heterogeneity undergoes a like trans- 
formation. Upon the things in the environment 
which are useful to man the law of heterogeneity is 
concentrated. Domestic animals are multiplied in 
variety, and cultivated plants are changed until their 
native forms are lost and the new forms are multi- 
plied beyond enumeration. Fabrics for clothing 
are produced and garments are made ; materials for 
house structure are differentiated from the materials 
of nature, and dwellings, storehouses, marts, and 
temples are constructed in a multiplicity of forms. 
Tools and machines are differentiated from natural 
material; all the powers of nature are specialized 
for man's purposes; the whole progress of mankind 
is a succession of differentiations or specializations of 
the materials of nature to become the works of art. 

The law of survival also undergoes a profound 
modification. Men are no longer subject to the 
vicissitudes of natural environment where winds 
may congeal their limbs, where floods may over- 
whelm them with death, and where disease may 



EVOLUTION 203 

carry them away in multitudes. These agencies 
still act and have their victims, but the inventions of 
man are ever becoming more potent for the pres- 
ervation of life. There was a time when drought 
in a narrow belt of country might produce a famine 
and when the people of such regions might perish ; but 
no more famines can occur, for railroads link all 
fields to every man's farm. There was a time when 
a blizzard might destroy a tribe ; but now a storm 
may sweep in vain from the boreal zone about the 
dwellings of civilized men, for man constructs his 
home against these vicissitudes. 

Human providence is more potent than flood, 
more potent than drought, more potent than wind. 
The man of intellect wields a power that giants 
cannot exercise. 

The differentiation of animal species found in the 
lower world is replaced as a new method of progress 
is evolved. The animals differentiate into biotic 
species. This tendency seems to have prevailed in 
the early and more animal history of mankind, for 
the records of these forms are still preserved in 
types of men, as exhibited in the conformation of 
the skeleton and especially in the cranium ; it is also 
exhibited in the color of the skin, the structure of 
the hair, the attitude of the eyes, the conformation 
of the face, and in other ways. But there is no 
black, or white, or tawny species, there is no straight 
or woolly-haired species, there is no horizontal or 
oblique-eyed species, there is no blue-eyed or black- 
eyed species, there is no broad or long-skulled 
species, but these characteristics are now inter- 
mingled in inextricable confusion — the result of the 
admixture of streams of blood. Thus the method of 



204 TRUTH AND ERROR 

differentiation of animal species has been reversed 
in the case of man. That in which men now differ 
is intellectual power, but fools are not necessarily 
blue-eyed and wise men black-eyed. The traits in 
which men differ are moral, but honest men are not 
necessarily broad-skulled or rogues long-skulled. 

The law of adaptation in the lower animals and 
in plants was made efficient by a high rate of 
multiplication, but in civilization this rate is 
diminished, so that man has not even yet crowded the 
earth and no land has been inhabited so densely as 
to press upon the capacity of the land to produce 
food. Famines have occurred only by improvidence, 
and the poor starve by neglect. The effort of 
mankind for sanitation, the healing of wounds and 
the curing of diseases, is the endeavor of mankind to 
repeal the law of nature when the environment is his 
destruction; thus this law of adaptation to environ- 
ment for the preservation of the few among the lower 
animals, is made inefficient by the slow rate of the 
multiplication of men and is replaced by human 
effort to preserve and prolong life. 

There is an environment to which men are 
adapted; it is the environment of culture. Most 
men speak the language of the people among whom 
they were born. Every man seeks a vocation to 
adapt himself to the vocations of others, that by his 
special labor he may acquire the most of the special 
labors of others; so he adjusts himself to the 
industrial conditions by which he is surrounded. 
From the cradle to the grave his intellectual advance- 
ment is dependent largely upon his intellectual 
environment, and he suits that environment to his 
purpose. 



EVOLUTION 205 

Man cultivates his physical powers by exercise 
in the industries and in a variety of athletic sports, in 
the same manner as do the lower animals, and he 
invents new methods of physical training; but he 
also and chiefly develops methods of intellectual 
training, instruction and research, to which the 
schools, the libraries, the journals, and the systems 
of research abundantly attest. No, the laws of 
brute evolution have been repealed by substitution 
and the new ways are methods of culture. The 
laws of nature unmodified by man produce horns, 
claws, fangs, and poisons for attack, with armor, 
cowardice, and deceit for defense. Culture replaces 
these brutal devices; smiling fields, cheerful homes, 
and all the products of civilization are derived from 
the inventions of man himself. As the generations 
come each inherits from his predecessor and adds to 
the patrimony by self-activity. That which the self 
can accomplish is multiplied by all which the 
social environment produces. Man is not only an 
heir to the past generations, but he cooperates in the 
activities of the present, and when he dies he 
bequeaths the intellectual wealth which his self- 
activity has acquired in cooperation with all his 
contemporaries of the world. 

In the natural world evolution is primarily by 
incorporation and reincorporation. This incorpora- 
tion is by affinity. We have shown that affinity is 
explained as the consciousness and choice of ulti- 
mate particles. When we reach animate beings in 
which affinity is mind, the Lamarckian law of effort 
becomes potent in evolution until men are developed 
and the five forms of culture are invented. Molec- 
ular reincorporation by heredity now goes hand in 



206 TRUTH AND ERROR 

hand with culture or self-activity modified by social 
environment. 

Evolution as a process is the development of new 
kinds with their concomitant forms, forces, causa- 
tions and ideations by the multiplication of the 
relations of causation. 



CHAPTER XIV 

SENSATION 

We must here recall the distinction between feel- 
ing and sensation set forth in a former chapter. 
Feeling is cognition of effect upon self and gives 
rise to the emotions, while sensation is the cognition 
of the external cause of a sense impression and gives 
rise to intellection. 

I feel light as an effect, but I see its cause in the 
luminant or the reflector. I attend to its effect, if 
it is too brilliant, or I attend to its cause, if I am 
interested in the cause. When I attend to the effect, 
it is a feeling; when I attend to the cause, it is a 
sense impression. An explosion occurs; the effect 
upon my ear is painful. If I attend to it I have a 
feeling, but if I wish to know its cause and attend to 
it, I have a sensation. Thus feeling and sensation are 
reciprocal. The more the feeling, the less the 
sensation; the more the sensation, the less the 
feeling. This is an old doctrine in a new form. 
The old doctrine of psychology is this : that feeling 
and cognition are inversely proportional; as we go 
on the old statement will be found faulty, and the 
new statement, that feeling and sensation are 
reciprocal, will be found correct. 

An object impinges upon my organ of taste. If 
its taste is pleasant or unpleasant and I attend to that 
as an effect, it is a feeling, but if I attend to the 
object as a cause, it is a sensation. The organ of 

taste is in the portal to the metabolic organs. The 

207 



208 TRUTH AND ERROR 

taste of the object is pleasant or unpleasant, as I 
perceive by eating. Now, suppose that I am select- 
ing apples for the purpose of putting the sweet in 
one basket and the sour in another. I am attending 
now to a property of the object through its effect 
upon the subject. Its effect upon the subject is 
emotional, but considered as a property of the 
object, it is intellectual. It is thus that an organ 
of feeling is transmuted into an organ of sense 
which reveals the property of the body. 

The feeling of the circulation, which is variable 
by temperature and thus a feeling of heat, is devel- 
oped into the sense of touch, and the sense of touch, 
which reveals the property, performs the vicarious 
function of revealing the body touched. 

The feeling of strain is developed into the sense 
of stress, and the sense of stress reveals the body 
producing the stress. 

A feeling of vibration occurs when the medium, as 
water or air, is agitated in such manner as to pro- 
duce sound. This feeling is especially produced in 
the self by speech ; the origin of speech is the calling 
of the mate, which call is made by one and heard 
by the other, and hence heard by both. 

Thus the feeling of sound develops into the sense 
of hearing, which is the sense of causation ; for the 
primordial ego, in the race and in the individual 
alike, first cognizes causation as speech and dis- 
tinguishes it from force, for it can cause another to 
act by speech and it is conscious that it can be caused 
to act by speech. 

The feeling of motion in self results whenever we 
are conscious of the will to move. Thus the will to 
move is the cause of the feeling of molar motion 



SENSATION 209 

itself, and the feeling of motion is developed into 
the sense of vision by which motion is primordially 
and naively interpreted as the sense of conception. 
The feeling of motion is developed into the sense 
of seeing, for we feel molar motion and feel that 
that is caused by will, and primitive man naively 
infers that all molar motion is caused by will ; hence 
he infers that all molar bodies have will. 

The senses are vicarious feelings. * 

I have already defined consciousness in the particle 
as awareness of self, as a unit, an extension, a speed, 
and a persistence, for this is the hypothesis upon 
which I am working. For human psychology it 

* In this work only such a review of science is intended as is necessary 
for the development of an epistomology. In order to accomplish this I have 
attempted to set forth the properties of bodies in their reciprocal aspect as 
bodies and particles, or as internal and external relations. I have not con- 
sidered it necessary or appropriate to enter into a minute discussion of the 
facts and principles of all the sciences severally. For example, the develop- 
ment of the senses from the feelings receives but brief mention. To set 
forth the ontogeny and philogeny of the senses would require a separate 
work. In my consideration of the development of the sense of hearing I 
have followed Frederic S. I,ee, more perhaps than any other physiologist, 
though I have consulted several other authors on the subject. In stating 
my conclusions I have necessarily refrained from citing authorities, as I do 
not enter into these subjects except to make broad generalizations. But 
since this chapter was written I have received an abstract of a paper read 
by Dr. I^ee before the British Association (published in the Report of that 
Association for 1897) , in which I find that he briefly but clearly propounds 
the doctrine that the feeling of equilibrium is developed into the sense of 
hearing. I quote the abstract in full. 

THE EAR AND THE I,AT£RAI, UNE IN FISHES. 
By Frederic S. I,ee, Ph.D. 
The chief morphological facts upon which the theory of the origin of the 
ear from the system of the lateral line is based are similarity in structure 
of the adult organs, in innervation, and in ontogeny. Physiology seems 
able to present at least circumstantial evidence in favor of this theory. The 
author has investigated the functions of the ear and the sense-organs of 
the lateral line in fishes. 
The Ear.— The results may be tabulated as follows :— 

Functions of the Ear. Sense-organs. 

I. Dynamical functions in )1. Rotary movements. Cristae acusticae 

recognition of. J 2. Progressive movements. Maculae acusticae 



210 TRUTH AND ERROR 

needs not that the theory be extended to the ulti- 
mate chemical particle, but the doctrine is demon- 
strated to the extent that the animate cellular 
particle is conscious. Now I wish to consider con- 
sciousness as awareness of the part which a particle 
takes as a cause or effect in the production of a 
judgment. 

When a sapid substance impinges upon my organ 
of taste I am conscious of an effect. When a body 
touches me I am conscious of an effect. When a 
sound impinges on my ear I am conscious of an 
effect. When a body presses upon my muscles I 
am conscious of an effect, and when a color strikes 



"• Sta ?SUStonor S ...* tt } 3 - Position in space. Macule acustica. 
The above functions are divisions of the general function of equilibration : 

the sense-organs of the ear deal with the equilibrium of the body under all 

circumstances, both in movement and at rest. 

In vertebrates above the fishes we must add to the above : 

III. Auditory functions in ) 4. Vibratory motions. Papilla acustica 
recognition of. ) basilaris. 

Experiments by the author and by Kxeidl prove that fishes do not 
possess the power of audition. Hence the ear in fishes is purely equilibra- 
tive in function. 

2. The Lateral Line.— Simple cutting of the lateral nerve or destruction 
of the lateral organs does not seem to affect equilibrium. But destruction 
of the organs, combined with removal of the pectoral and pelvic fins, causes 
marked lack of equilibrium, manifested by uncertain, ill-regulated move- 
ments ; removal of fins alone has no pronounced effect. 

Central stimulation of the lateral nerve causes the same compensating 
movements of the fins as does stimulation of the acoustic of the opposite 
side. These results make it probable that the organs of the lateral line are 
equilibrative in function, and are employed in the recognition of currents 
in the water and of movements of the body through the water. The results 
of Bonnier and of Fuchs are in harmony with this. 

This was probably the primitive function. By the inclosure within the 
skull of a bit of the lateral line and the differentiation and refinement of 
its sense-organs, a more perfect organ of appreciation of movement, and 
hence of equilibrium, was evolved in the ear. Along with the appearance 
of land animals a portion of this organ became still more differentiated and 
refined, and, as the papilla acustica basilaris, acquired the power of 
appreciating the movements that we call sound. Thus equilibration and 
audition became associated in the same organ. 



SENSATION 211 

my eyes I am conscious of an effect. In these 
cases consciousness in a judgment is awareness of 
effect on itself, but it is the consciousness of the 
particle which is transmitted to the cortex. 

See how this is developed. Consciousness is 
awareness of the part which self takes in the pro- 
duction of a judgment, either as a cause or as an 
effect. Thus I am conscious of the cause when I 
act upon another, and I am conscious of the effect 
when another acts upon me, and I am conscious of 
both cause and effect when I act upon myself, as 
when I touch my head with my hand. Here there 
are two pairs of correlates, self and other, together 
with cause and effect, and we must distinguish an 
active consciousness from a passive consciousness. 
I call it an active consciousness when I am con- 
scious of being a cause, and a passive consciousness 
when I am conscious of experiencing an effect. 
This distinction must be firmly held. 

Consciousness in this stage is awareness of the 
terms of causation, but they are not immediately 
related, for cases of active and passive consciousness 
occur usually at different times and under different 
circumstances. But there are some occurrences 
where the active and the passive elements are 
immediately connected in succession; this hap- 
pens when I act on myself. In this manner the 
primitive mind learns of causation as composed of 
cause and effect, in the order of antecedent and 
consequent. 

When I am conscious of an effect I infer a cause 
as an external object. When I taste I infer that I 
taste some other thing or object; when I smell I 
infer that I smell some external thing ; when I am 



212 TRUTH AND ERROR 

touched I infer that I am touched by some external 
thing ; when I am pressed I infer that I am pressed 
by some external thing; when I hear I infer that 
I hear some external thing, and when I see I infer 
that I see some external thing. This something 
we call the object, and the mental act we call 
inference. A consciousness and an inference pro- 
duce what I call a judgment, but this is an imperfect 
account of the process ; let us know it all. 

A sense impression does not constitute a sensation, 
but a sensation is compounded of sense impressions. 
Let us say that I have had many sense impressions 
of different kinds. Now suppose that I have one of 
taste; how shall I classify it with former sense 
impressions? Evidently they must be recalled and 
compared, and I choose one for this purpose. This 
choosing of a past sense impression and comparing 
it with a present sense impression and deciding that 
they are alike, I call a judgment. 

These things are necessary to a primitive judg- 
ment. First, a sense impression; second, a con- 
sciousness of that impression; third, a desire to 
know its cause; fourth, a choice of a cause; fifth, 
a consciousness of the concept of that cause ; sixth, 
a comparison of one conscious term with the other; 
and seventh, a judgment of likeness or of unlikeness. 
Stated in another manner, the judgment has these 
elements, a consciousness of a sense impression on 
the one hand, and a consciousness of another which 
is chosen, and the two are compared and found to be 
alike or unlike as the case may be, and a judgment 
is made. In still another manner a judgment may 
be defined as the comparison of a present event 
with a past event in which consciousness is twice 



SENSATION 213 

involved ; in the first an impression causes conscious- 
ness; in the second a choice causes consciousness, 
when the two are compared and a judgment made of 
likeness or unlikeness, which is identification and 
discrimination. 

Choose a taste and you will recollect a taste; 
choose an odor and you will recollect an odor; 
choose a touch and you will recollect a touch ; choose 
a pressure and you will recollect a pressure ; choose 
a sound and you will recollect a sound; choose a 
color and you will recollect a color. 

To choose is to revive in memory, for choice is the 
cause of the revival which is the effect. You cannot 
think of all sense impressions or sensations at one 
time, but choose any one of them and you will 
recollect that one. Inference, therefore, is guessing 
or choosing, or in another light it may be called 
interpreting. We shall hereafter see that this 
choosing is not random guessing. 

The babe tastes milk ; tastes it again and makes a 
judgment that the milk which it tastes now is like 
the milk which it tasted before; then it tastes 
vinegar and makes a judgment that it is unlike the 
previous taste. It continues to taste milk and 
vinegar and discriminates between the two. Its 
judgment of likeness is repeated in the case of the 
milk and repeated in the case of the vinegar and 
these judgments are consolidated, so that the present 
judgment of likeness is a judgment of likeness to 
some of the previous cases and of Unlikeness to others. 
The mind does not recall every example to con- 
sciousness and compare them severally with the 
present one, but it recalls the like in a consolidated or 
fused group if the judgment is that of likeness. 



214 TRUTH AND ERROR 

This process of consolidating or fusing judgments 
I call conception. 

It has been said that an inference is not a random 
guess. The guess is always dictated by something 
in experience as some collateral circumstance, 
expectation, or interest. We shall hereafter* see 
that interest is the chief, if not the sole, agency in 
determining the choice. 

But some judgments are not valid. A taste may 
be subjective, due to some disease of the organ of 
taste; then the judgment is a fallacy. 

Suppose that my skin is diseased, and that I have 
a feeling which I mistake for a sensation and infer 
that something touches me; this subjective effect, 
which I here call a feeling, must be distinguished 
from a sense impression or it will lead to an erro- 
neous judgment. I may have a feeling in the ear, as 
when I take an overdose of quinine, and if it is con- 
founded with a sense impression a fallacy is 
produced. Feelings of this kind are sometimes 
known as subjective sensations, and they must 
always be clearly distinguished from sense impres- 
sions. 

Here we reach a dilemma; a judgment has been 
formed, but it may be a fallacy or a certitude. How 
shall we know? Something else is needed; this is 
verification. In sensation verification is accom- 
plished by repetition. But this is an imperfect 
method, for in abnormal conditions repeated 
erroneous judgments may be made. While the 
method usually serves the purpose, sometimes it fails 
and a higher verification is dependent upon another 
faculty of judgment by another sense. 

Verification depends upon the ability of a judg- 



SENSATION 215 

ment to coalesce with other judgments in concepts ; 
that is, it depends on its conceivability. If a judg- 
ment is incongruous with previous judgments it can- 
not be conceived and is held for confirmation or 
rejection. The class may at once be discovered and 
the right concept enlarged, or it may wait until 
another like judgment is made, when a new concept 
will be generated. 

Primary consciousness is in the end organ, but it is 
transmitted by fibrous nerves to the ganglion and 
finally to the cortex; when it comes to the cortex, 
the individual, or the ego, is conscious of the same 
impression. Each ganglion in the hierarchy forms 
a distinct judgment. The cortex certainly forms 
judgments for itself and combines them with con- 
cepts. The action of the cortex must be concomitant 
with the making of a judgment, and as the judgment 
must coalesce with the concept, the part of the cortex 
involved must be structurally modified thereby. 
Thus it is that a record is made of a judgment when 
it coalesces with a concept. The record then is 
physiological, as memory is physiological, and judg- 
ment and conception are thus the psychological 
abstracts of concomitant processes of the brain. 

A judgment once formed remains in memory as 
an effect on the organ of mind; another like judg- 
ment revives it, or in more common language, it is 
recollected. Memory as retention is not a phenom- 
enon of the fifth property called judgment, but of the 
fourth property called time; but recollection is 
revival in consciousness and is an intellectual proc- 
ess. To distinguish the fifth property from all the 
others we may call judgment intellectual and the 
other properties mechanical. It must be remem- 



2l6 TRUTH AND ERROR 

bered that the judgment cannot exist without the 
mechanical properties, that is, there can be no judg- 
ment without retention or memory. A judgment 
cannot persist as a pure judgment, for its duration, 
which is called memory or retention, depends upon 
the time property of a body which must also have 
motion, space, and number. 

In experimental psychology the mechanical con- 
comitants are the units with which judgments are 
measured. The science also deals in experiment 
with the conditions in the object under which judg- 
ments are formed. It may be that here it finds its 
most fruitful field as a co-worker with introspection. 
Experimentation, physiology, and introspection are 
the methods of psychology. Alone they fill the 
world with fallacies; cooperating they give a valid 
psychology. Introspection has had the field to itself 
since the days of Aristotle and has filled the world with 
hallucinations. In these later days science comes 
with two new methods which, conjoined with the old, 
give promise of a new and better psychology. 

In the compounding of judgments by sensation, if 
one consciousness is inferred to be like another then 
the present sense impression recalls that other. 
Thus the judgment of sensation is the judgment of 
likeness. A succession of judgments of this kind 
are consolidated in a concept and every additional 
sense judgment verifies the past sense judgment. 
When the present sense impression revives a past 
like sensation, it usually recalls it as integrated and 
differentiated. For example, I hear a sound and 
cognize it as a sound by recalling past sounds in a 
consolidated group, but in this case it may be a shrill 
cry. Another sensation of the same character may 



SENSATION 2 17 

occur, the two being separated by a longer or a shorter 
interval ; in this case I not only recognize the sound 
as such but also recall the former cry, so that I not 
only classify the cry among sounds, but also classify 
the cry among cries. 

Every sense mechanically abstracts the impressions 
which it receives as distinguished from the impres- 
sions received from other senses. The eye abstracts 
sense impressions of light, the ear abstracts sense 
impressions of sound, the nose abstracts sense impres- 
sions of odor, the mouth abstracts sense impressions 
of taste, the skin abstracts sense impressions of 
touch, the muscles abstract sense impressions of 
force, as stress and strain, etc. 

It does not comport with our present purpose to 
examine, either anatomically or physiologically, the 
nature of the senses themselves ; we are simply trying 
to find out what a sensation is when we consider it 
as one of a group of like judgments forming a 
concept. 

We see that the sensations are abstracted in that 
every sense organ recognizes a single property and 
that for every organ there is a fundamental property. 
Then we see that the sense impression coming into 
one organ is classified as like or unlike ; thus the eye 
recognizes distinctions of light, the ear recognizes 
distinctions of sound, the nose recognizes distinctions 
of odor, the mouth recognizes distinctions of flavor, 
and the touch recognizes distinctions of texture. 
The muscular sense, or sense of strain, recognizes 
distinctions of force, and it is thus that sensation is 
abstraction and classification. 

Kind is directly cognized by the sense of taste 
and odor. The same objects that are cognized by 



2l8 TRUTH AND ERROR 

these senses may also be cognized by the other 
senses, and while they do not give direct deliver- 
ances of kind, they give deliverances which become 
symbols of kind. We cannot taste the kind when 
we touch the pear, but we can recollect it. We do 
not taste the pear when we weigh it in the hand, 
but we may recollect its taste. When standing 
under the pear-tree we hear the pear fall; we cannot 
taste it, but we may recollect its taste. When we 
see the pear upon the tree we do not taste it, but we 
may recollect its flavor. Thus the primary sense of 
kind is taste, and the other senses become vicarious 
senses of taste. We need a term for this faculty and 
shall use apperception to signify this cognition of 
different properties by one sense. Like all other 
terms of psychology, this one has been used in 
many senses with a tendenc) 7 to universal meaning, 
but I shall use apperception to signify the union of 
judgments of disparate properties discovered by 
disparate senses. I have used concomitancy and 
comprehension to signify the union of disparate 
properties in one particle or body; in the same 
manner I use apperception to signify the union of 
judgments of disparate properties in one particle or 
body. This may be stated in another way. The 
development of taste is only the development of a 
cognition of an attribute, but all the five attributes 
or properties of bodies are concomitant, and though 
primarily recognized by disparate senses they are 
finally recognized as concomitants in bodies, and 
when a body is cognized by one sense it recognizes 
all of the properties of the body primarily discovered 
by the other senses. Thus in cognizing the property 
of a body by taste or smell, we may re-cognize the 



SENSATION 219 

body itself with all its properties. In this manner 
one sense becomes vicarious for the others. This 
faculty we have called apperception. 

We may consider a being so lowly that all its 
judgments are confined within the sphere of good or 
evil in the objects of the environment as they are 
related to itself as food. But if its fixed life were 
developed into a freely moving life, it would be 
guided in its search for food by an auxiliary sense 
of kind; this is the sense of smell. The primary 
sense is the sense of taste, but it has an auxiliary 
sense by which it discovers the same properties, for 
odors and flavors are the same, though gathered 
from the environment by disparate organs. 

Verified judgments of sensation are cognitions of 
kind. Sense impressions of a kind are consolidated ; 
this consolidation comes by experience and produces 
a concept; thus we have a concept of a particular 
color as distinguished from sound, or of sound as 
distinguished from strain, or of strain as distin- 
guished from touch, or of touch as distinguished 
from taste. Sensation, therefore, produces concepts 
of kind, and the correlates of likeness and unlikeness 
are involved. We may define sensation as the 
cognition of properties as kinds in their effects, and 
it is a compound of judgments ; and a judgment is a 
combination of a sense impression, a consciousness, 
a choice, a concept, and a comparison. 

Such judgments as we have hitherto considered in 
this chapter are not the only judgments of kind 
which are formed by the mind. When a judgment 
is once formed and recorded in the structure of the 
brain, it may be recalled as a collateral suggestion 
of a sense impression, or by the will itself, and when 



220 TRUTH AND ERROR 

thus recalled it may be compared with other concepts, 
and other new judgments of kind may thus be pro- 
duced. The elements of a judgment of this kind 
are, first, the choice of a past concept; second, the 
consciousness of it; third, the choice of another 
concept; fourth, a consciousness of it; fifth, the 
comparison of one with the other. The products of 
these five factors will constitute a new judgment. 
Thus the constitution of the judgment still remains 
the same, but it begins with a recollection instead of 
with a sense impression. Thus judgments of kind 
are presentative and representative. Presentative 
judgments are inductive ; representative judgments 
are deductive. By presentative judgments we accu- 
mulate facts; by representative judgments we gener- 
alize them under the law that whatever is true of an 
object is true of its serial or class identity. 

An apple has the taste of an apple, the odor of an 
apple, the texture of an apple, the pressure of an 
apple, the sound of an apple when it falls on the 
ground, and the color of an apple when it is seen. 
Thus we have five methods of distinguishing an 
apple from a stone, a bush, or a bird. It will be 
noticed that I consider taste and smell not as 
disparate senses to distinguish disparate properties, 
but as varieties of one sense for the sake of dis- 
tinguishing the same property. Thus we have five 
senses for discovering a body as a kind, and when a 
body is discovered as a kind by one of the senses 
this discovery may be verified by one or all of the 
other senses. 

First we may verify a judgment of one sense 
impression by repeating the same impression, and 
finally we may verify what one sense impression 



SENSATION 22 1 

successively affirms by an appeal to another sense. 
In deductive or representative reasoning the method 
of verification is at first by congruity of concepts, 
but when concepts are not congruous they may be 
referred back to presentative reasoning; this is 
experimentation. All generalizations or deductive 
conclusions may be referred back to experimentation 
for verification. 

We may now give a more adequate definition of 
sensation. Sensation is a process of forming a 
judgment of number or of kind and of verifying the 
same. Verification is accomplished by repetition of 
the sense impression, or by referring the impression 
made on one sense to the court of another sense. 
In a case of judgment of number as distinguished 
from its correlate kind, man has devised a special 
method of verification known as measurement, which 
gives rise to the psychologic science of mathe- 
matics, which is also defined as the science of 
quantity. The judgment of number is verified by 
enumeration or counting. 

We have found five classific properties: kind, 
form, force, causation, and conception, derived from 
the essentials by incorporation, and that the kind is a 
relative unit, the form a relative extension, the force 
a relative speed, the causation a relative persistence 
and the conception a relative consciousness. 

There are no particles which are not found in 
bodies, and all bodies are composed of particles. The 
quantitative properties are found when we consider 
particles. Classific properties are found when we 
consider bodies. Thus quantitative properties and 
classific properties are reciprocals, and in each set 
there are five concomitants. The logician considers 



222 TRUTH AND ERROR 

classes, the mathematician quantities; they thus 
view the universe from reciprocal sides; the one 
classifies, the other computes. Four of the categories 
are found in inanimate bodies, unless our hypothesis 
is valid. All five are certainly found rn animate 
bodies. They all coexist and cannot be dissevered, 
so that when one is cognized the others are implied, 
and when they are all considered as kind they are 
subject to logical reasoning. In order that they 
may be subject to mathematical reasoning, kind 
must be resolved into number, form into space, 
force into motion, causation into time and concept 
into judgment, and then as properties they can all 
by substitution be represented by number, and thus 
computation is possible. It is only in the new 
science of psycho-physics that judgments are treated 
mathematically. 

We may speak of a body without overtly affirming 
its properties, but they are implicitly affirmed or 
posited. The term posit is here used to mean the 
indirect assertion of something by directly asserting 
some other thing essential to it and in whose exist- 
ence it is involved. 

The word matter is the name of a collection of 
particles and every particle is a combination of 
essentials. The concept of matter has passed through 
the crucible of human experience and the most 
thorough and profound scientific investigation. All 
human knowledge, all scientific research, all ideation, 
and all logical expression are founded on this con- 
cept. To deny the reality of matter is to murder 
reason. 

It may be well to recapitulate what has here been 
taught concerning substrates. 



SENSATION 2 23 

First, we have shown that the essentials of prop- 
erties are their substrates severally; unity is the 
substrate of number, extension is the substrate of 
space, speed is the substrate of motion, consciousness 
is the substrate of judgment. 

Second, we have shown that the quantitative 
properties are the substrates of the categoric proper- 
ties; number is the substrate of kind, space is the 
substrate of form, motion is the substrate of force, 
time is the substrate of causation, and judgment is the 
substrate of conception. 

Third, it has been shown that a particle and its 
essentials are one and the same thing, and that 
ultimate particles constitute the substrate of bodies. 
These self-evident propositions make the concept 
of substrate simple and clear. 

The doctrine of bodies and properties herein 
expounded is simple. When it is compared with the 
metaphysical discussions of number, space, motion, 
time, and judgment, and the categories derived from 
them, which are kind, form, force, causation and 
conception, it will be a surprise to discover how 
tomes have been reduced to pages by eliminating 
fallacies. Censorious persons have sometimes 
accused the vender of beverages of adding water 
to wine. Brokers use this dilution of wine as a 
metaphor and speak of watered stock. It is astonish- 
ing how the vintage of science has been watered by 
the venders of speculation. 

When the similar sense impressions come to an 
organ, relations of likeness are discovered; but when 
dissimilar sense impressions act upon the same sense 
their unlikeness appears. In this manner the sense 
impressions coming to the same organ are classified. 



224 TRUTH AND ERROR 

Then disparate sense impressions come to disparate 
organs, as light to the eye, taste to the mouth, etc. 
The same object may produce disparate sense im- 
pressions to disparate organs, so that at one time the 
object is a color, at another time it is a sound, at 
another it is an odor, at another it is a pressure, at 
another it is a touch, and at still another it is a 
taste. In this manner different manifestations of 
the same object are brought to the senses and 
integrated or unified as coming from one object, that 
is, the self learns that one object may have different 
manifestations ; thus the apple exhibits color, sound, 
pressure, touch, taste, and odor. In this manner 
concepts are formed of different manifestations of 
the same body; thus sensation is the cognition of 
different properties in one body which is considered 
as a kind. 

The self, having discovered the union of these 
manifestations in one body or particle, quickly learns 
that when one property is observed the others may 
be expected; thus the color becomes the symbol of 
the apple and it is known by sight, or the sound 
becomes the symbol of the apple and it is known by 
sound, the texture becomes the symbol of the apple 
and it is known by touch, the flavor becomes the 
symbol of the apple and it is known by taste, the 
odor becomes the symbol of the apple and it is known 
by smell. This is the recognition of an object by 
some one of its properties manifested to a sense and 
taken as the symbol of the object itself with its 
other manifestations and known as the cause of a 
sense impression. As the particle can be designated 
by naming any one of its essentials, so the body can 
be named by any one of its properties, and so also 



SENSATION 225 

it can be recollected by any one of its properties. 
In perception a form becomes the nucleus of a con- 
cept which is recollected when a sense impression 
recalls it. 

The lower animal, desiring" to gather food for its 
offspring, and having the sense of touch as well as 
taste, could utilize its sense of touch in gathering 
food by the cognition of its form without resort to 
the sense of taste and yet it could verify touch by 
taste. 



CHAPTER XV 



PERCEPTION 



It has been shown that there is a faculty of the 
mind, by which judgments and concepts of kind are 
produced, which has been called sensation. It is 
now proposed to demonstrate that there is a faculty 
of the mind by which judgments and concepts of 
form are produced which will be called perception. 
It is difficult to select a term for this purpose. It 
might be best to coin one, but the term perception 
seems to be more often used in this sense than in 
any other. There is a general sense in which it is 
used to denote all intellections, and there is a general 
sense in which it is used to designate all presentative 
judgments, but I use it to designate the making 
of judgments both presentative and representative, 
and also of concepts of form. 

We must now set forth the process of perception 
as judgment. Here again we have a sense impres- 
sion, a consciousness, a choice, a concept, and a 
comparison as the foundation of a judgment. The 
judgment or inference is that the two compared 
are caused by objects having the same or a similar 
form. In making the judgment there must be a 
discrimination and an identification. The mind 
having an object presented to it by a sense impres- 
sion must choose some other concept of a form sup- 
posed to be like this form and compare the two and 

226 



PERCEPTION 227 

make a judgment of likeness or of unlikeness as the 
case may be. We thus see that the external form 
determines the internal judgment of form. 

Like a judgment of sensation, a judgment of per- 
ception may be a certitude or a fallacy. If it is 
a fallacy it must be corrected, and if a certitude it 
must be verified. If the form were determined by 
consciousness there would be no need of verification, 
but as it is external, verification is necessary. A 
judgment of perception is imperfectly verified by 
repetition, for if the likeness is discovered a second 
time the judgment may be supposed valid, though 
the same conditions for error may still exist. 

In perception, as in sensation, one judgment is 
certified by another of a disparate sense. If I taste 
and touch the apple I am sure that it is an apple, or 
if I taste, touch, and see the apple there is still 
further verification. 

A sense impression of light falls on my eye and I 
infer that it was caused by a horse of which I had a 
previous concept. The inference or choice of this 
cause recalls this concept and I conclude that the 
impression and the memory consciousness are alike. 
The concept of the horse was the concept of a form ; 
thus the cause was conceived as a form. Perception 
is cognition of the cause of a sense impression, con- 
sidered as a form. 

When we have recognized an object many times, 
the process of judging seems to be abbreviated by 
the cancellation of the act of choice; certain it is 
there is no conscious act of choice and apparently 
the judgment follows immediately upon the con- 
sciousness of the sense impression. This cancella- 
tion of some of the elements of a judgment is 



228 TRUTH AND ERROR 

particularly observable with sense impressions of 
vision when introspection seems to reveal no inter- 
mediate elements. It is only in cases where original 
judgments are made and those where there is some 
obscurity in the sense impression, that all of the 
elements of the judgment are revealed. This 
phenomenon of apparent cancellation of elements of 
judgment that are made in the act of perception 
cannot too strongly be emphasized. Not only are 
elements frequently obscure or entirely lost, but 
whole groups of judgments seem to be canceled in 
the stream of thought. 

That which has been called the choice, the guess, 
or the hypothesis, is not a random choice but is a 
choice which arises from experience. 

I am wandering on the shore of the lake. Weary 
with a long walk, I climb to the summit of a rock, 
from which vantage ground I hope to obtain a 
better view while resting. In climbing I grasp the 
angle of a boulder over my head and immediately 
feel a pain thrilling through my nerves. From the 
sensation of touch I gather other knowledge, as I 
think that I have cut my finger on the sharp edge of 
a crystal. From where I stand I cannot see the 
crystal, but my knowledge of these rocks is such 
that I know that sharp crystals of feldspar sometimes 
protrude from them, and I think of it as such. My 
mind neglects the effect upon myself to discover its 
cause — a sharp crystal on the rock — and I have made 
a discovery. It is my present knowledge of boulders 
and crystals that guides me to this discovery. 
Without knowledge of this kind I might give some 
other interpretation to the sensation. If a moment 
ago I had seen a rattlesnake crawling over the grass, 



PERCEPTION 229 

I might have made a false interpretation and fancied 
myself wounded by the fang of a serpent. Or sup- 
pose I had seen a sweet-brier growing over the 
rock ; then I might have concluded that my wound 
was from a thorn. This same sense impression, 
under different conditions of knowledge, may have 
different interpretations. The true interpretation 
is reached only because there already exists in my 
mind the related facts necessary to correct inter- 
pretation. The inference, therefore, is controlled by 
previous knowledge, and, in this case, guided to the 
truth. 

Sitting upon the rock and gazing around the lake, 
nry eye follows the meandering of the shore, and 
I readily distinguish the blue waters from the green 
banks. This perception is much like that by which 
the crystal was discovered. Let us see in what 
respect it is the same and in what respect it is 
different. In the one there was a sense impression 
of touch and a feeling impression of pain in my finger 
when the nerve was pricked, and in the other a 
sense impression on my eye when the nerves were 
touched by light, but no feeling of pain. The light 
reflected from the waters beats upon my eye and 
produces an effect, but I do not think of the sense 
impression as an effect, but only of its cause. The 
mind goes out beyond the consciousness to the object 
which produces it. 

In the group of mental operations by which the 
crystal is recognized the particular feeling of pain 
is conspicuous ; but in the operations by which the 
water is discovered, the beating of light does not 
cause a feeling as a pleasant or as an unpleasant effect. 
The discovery of blue waters and green banks can- 



230 TRUTH AND ERROR 

not be made without previous knowledge. Suppose 
that I have never seen water — that I have suddenly 
been transported from some mythic land where 
basins of glass are embosomed in the landscape; 
with only such knowledge in my mind I think of a 
beautiful sheet of glass, and, though erroneous, the 
interpretation is believed as true, unless I submit it 
to verification. 

Or suppose that I climb to the top of a mountain, 
where bays and inlets are thrust into the land. On 
arriving at the summit I look about, and the 
mountain seems to be an island. From the foot of 
the mountain on every side there seems to be a 
stretch of gray water. After a time a breeze starts 
up, and the water seems to be agitated in great 
waves, and at last the waves are driven away in 
tumultuous cloudlets. Now the blue lake stretches 
from the foot of the mountain on one side and 
valleys and hills from the other. My first inference 
was a fallacy; my second inference is a certitude. 

I look along the shore again, and I see a white 
object on the water. What really happens is that 
arranged light reflected from the distant object beats 
upon the nerve of my eye, which differs from other 
light entering it. I do not stop to observe the effect 
on me, but my mind is occupied with the external 
cause. I am just from the seaside, and have been 
watching the gulls soaring through the air and 
gathering flotsam. I interpret the beating of this 
white light as caused by the reflection of light by a 
gull. I believe I see a gull ; but it moves not, and 
I doubt the veracity of my vision. Looking again 
with care, I believe that the cause of this beating is 
a white boulder with its crest emerging from the 



PERCEPTION 231 

water. Satisfied with this interpretation, my 
attention is directed to a boy coming down to the 
shore. As a sansculotte he wades into the water 
and follows the floats of a net until he comes to the 
white object which was to me first a bird and then 
a boulder. Now I make the true inference and see 
that the white object is a white cloth — a signal on 
the top of a stake to mark the fishing ground — and 
verify it. The facts uppermost in my mind caused 
me to make false interpretations, each of which I 
could not verify, and rested satisfied only when I 
made an inference that was verified. As perception 
by touch is the interpretation of a sense impression, 
so perception by sight is the interpretation of a sense 
impression. Here again we have an interpretation 
which gives a judgment of the external cause of the 
sense impression. 

Still sitting on the rock, I hear a noise. It is but 
waves of air beating upon the nerves of my ear; 
but I go beyond the consciousness and turn my head 
in the supposed direction of the sound, expecting 
to see a man coming in the distance ; for have I not 
heard his voice? At this I am disappointed; and 
yet it does not seem strange, for I have made erro- 
neous interpretations many times. I continue to 
watch the fisherboy in the river below. The noise 
is heard again, and this time it is the caw of a raven 
in a distant tree. I have chosen the right cause. 
I muse on this error. Why is the voice of a crow 
mistaken for the voice of a man? Because I am 
expecting my friend who stopped by the way where 
blooming plants attracted his interest. A false 
interpretation of a consciousness often comes from 
expectancy. In this manner the deluded victims of 



232 TRUTH AND ERROR 

the thaumaturgic seance are made to see and often 
to hear the very spirits of the dead and to find con- 
firmation of fond belief. The human mind can 
discover any wonder the imagination can picture, 
however unreal or impossible it may be, if expect- 
ancy first be wrought to the requisite intensity. 
All perception is by interpretation, but the data by 
which we interpret are memories, and correct inter- 
pretation depends upon the right guessing in the 
first instance and ultimately on verification; once 
more we have verification necessary to cognition. 

Inductive or presentative perception having been 
set forth, it is now required to explain deductive or 
representative perception. A concept of perceptive 
judgments may be brought into consciousness by an 
effort of the will or adventitiously by association, 
and this concept of form may be compared with 
other concepts of form and a representative judg- 
ment made about two concepts, both of which are 
recalled from memory. 

Thus from the storehouse of memory we may take 
up by choice the innumerable concepts therein and 
make new judgments and combine them into con- 
cepts. These representative concepts can all be 
traced back to presentative elements. 

A representative judgment of perception, like that 
of sensation, has five elements. Instead of the con- 
sciousness of the sense impression we have the 
consciousness of a concept brought about by an act 
of choice arising from association or exercise of the 
will. Then a second concept must be chosen or 
recollected, and then we must have a consciousness 
of this second concept, and when the one concept is 
compared with the other a judgment is formed. 



PERCEPTION 233 

In presentative judgments we compare an impres- 
sion consciousness with a memory consciousness. 
In a representative judgment we compare a memory 
consciousness with another memory consciousness. 
In both cases we judge of likeness or unlikeness 
between the terms compared. In presentative judg- 
ments we discover facts and classify them; hence 
presentative judgments are inductive. In making 
representative judgments we discover laws and apply 
them ; hence representative judgments are deductive. 

We may now more adequately define perception 
as the process of making a judgment about form or 
its reciprocal space, and of verifying the same so as 
to produce a cognition. Verification is accomplished 
by repetition, by the same sense, by submitting the 
judgment to another sense, that is, by congruity of 
judgments or by submitting it to experimentation, 
which is also by congruity of judgments, or by 
submitting the judgment of form as its reciprocal 
space to measurement and computation, which is 
only another method of verification by congruity of 
concepts. 

A strange confusion is found among some meta- 
physical writers in confounding the presentative 
judgment with image forming. Touch is the primal 
sense of form, but other senses perform the same task 
vicariously. As taste and odor are the senses by 
which we discover kind and the concept of form 
becomes the symbol of the kind, so on the other 
hand while touch gives us form the kind may become 
the symbol of the form. Now the sense of vision is 
highly adapted to the performance of this symbolic 
or vicarious function. The image which is cast upon 
the retina is but arranged color with an outline 



234 TRUTH AND ERROR 

which is interpreted by vision to be the mark, sign, 
or symbol of a form, and the perceived image is a 
judgment. It is thus from vision that we derive 
symbolic judgments of form, and the judgment which 
we make is the image of the form. In vision the 
judgment of form is but one of the judgments we 
make ; and there are as many kinds of judgments of 
form as there are organs of sense. Now the meta- 
physical doctrine which makes images and ideas to 
mean the same thing as presentative and representa- 
tive judgments doubly confuses the subject, for 
thought is a succession of judgments of all kinds and 
image making is a presentative judgment of vision. 

We more often make the form the symbol of the 
other properties of a body than any of its other 
properties. While form is primordially cognized by 
touch, and touch is the final arbiter in verification of 
judgments of form, yet vision is more facile in 
making such judgments and multitudes of judgments 
of form are made through the sense of vision where 
one is made by the sense of touch ; notwithstanding 
this the judgments of vision are greatly subject to 
error and often require verification. 

It is due to facile cognition and recognition of form 
by vision that the forms of bodies become symbols 
of all their properties. Bodies through their forms 
subserve many purposes, but they also subserve 
many purposes through their kinds and through the 
other properties which inhere in them, as forces, 
causes, and concepts. But we seem often to cognize 
them first as form. We see the forms of a thousand 
apples, peaches, or pears, where we taste but one, and 
so we habitually know apples, peaches, and pears by 
their forms ; so we know all plants by their forms, 



PERCEPTION 235 

but few by their tastes and odors; so also we know 
all animals by their forms and but few by their 
tastes and odors, though it would seem that the dog 
knows many more things by their odors ; most rocks 
are known by their forms, few by their tastes; 
altogether bodies are known as forms much more 
than as kinds, forces, causes, and concepts, all of 
which is due to the fact that vision reveals form with 
such marvelous rapidity, while the medium of ether 
is unrecognized in making presentative judgments, 
and is discovered only through a long course of 
history in the development of representative judg- 
ments. It is not strange, therefore, that early 
metaphysical reasoning made such a profound dis- 
tinction between impressions and ideas and confused 
judgments of form with images by reaching the con- 
clusion that all presentative judgments are images 
pictured upon the retina. We paint images and the 
art is coetaneous with human culture. What we do 
by art in painting it was supposed that nature does 
in light upon the retina, and this is true within 
certain limitations, but the picture upon the retina 
must be judged like the picture upon the canvas, 
and in both cases the arranged colors are but symbols 
of form which is primarily learned by touch. 

In forming deductive judgments of perception, 
that is, judgments of form, we may find that our 
concepts are incongruous, that one judgment con- 
tradicts the other. When this is the case one or the 
other must be erroneous; we are then thrown back 
upon experimentation for a verification of the past 
judgments of which these concepts are composed. 
Experimentation thus becomes the great agency in 
time for clarifying concepts and for purging them 



236 TRUTH AND ERROR 

from error, that the inductive basis for deductive 
reasoning may be sound. 

It has been seen how a stream of sense impres- 
sions pours into consciousness a body of symbols, 
which are there organized into systematic knowl- 
edge. Clouds assemble, change their hues and 
vanish ; storms devastate the land and tempests vex 
the sea; the waters of the sea are lifted into the 
clouds, and the clouds themselves gather about the 
mountains and roll as river torrents in return to the 
sea; continents, islands, and mountains are up- 
heaved, rains and rivers carve them into wonderful 
forms ; volcanoes endeluge the land and trouble the 
sea; geologic formations are built and destroyed; 
the mountains, hills, plateaus, plains, and valleys are 
covered with the verdure of life ; the air, the land, 
and the waters teem with animal forms; man him- 
self is distributed over all land between the ice- 
formed walls of the polar regions — all the multitudi- 
nous objects of the cosmos are forever signalling to 
the human soul through vision and demanding its 
attention. Now one is seen, and now another; now 
one is heard, and now another ; now one signals with 
fragrance, and now another; now one signals with 
flavor, and now another ; and now one beckons with 
tactual signs, and now another ; and the human soul 
gathers all these symbols into one gigantic body 
known as the human mind. The external world is 
thus coined into symbols, and of these symbols the 
foundations of mind are laid, and of these symbols 
the walls are constructed, and of these symbols the 
dome is reared, until the temple of the soul is per- 
fected — a symbol structure built in every soul by 
the phenomena of the universe. 



CHAPTER XVI 



APPREHENSION 



It has been shown that there is a faculty of the 
mind by which bodies are cognized as kinds, which 
has been called sensation. It has further been 
shown that there is a faculty of the cognition of 
bodies as forms, which has been called perception. 
It is now designed to demonstrate that there is 
a faculty of the mind by which bodies are cognized as 
forces, and this faculty I shall call apprehension. 

A satisfactory term for this faculty is not found 
in the language. The term understanding has vaguely 
been used in this manner, but so many meanings 
for the term are in use that it cannot well be 
employed. The term apprehension also has several 
meanings, the most common of which is a synonym 
for fear, as when I affirm that I apprehend danger. 
I . shall use the term apprehension as restricted 
solely to the judgment of force. Apprehension, 
then, is the name of the mental process of cognizing 
force in all its modes. In order that my argument 
may proceed I must have a term which will be 
taken with this meaning and with it alone. 
'Whether I choose the term wisely or unwisely is 
another question. 

Man is conscious of his own force, and he infers 
force of other bodies because of their effects when 
they impinge upon himself, being conscious of these 
effects. Then he discovers the forces of molar 
bodies in the change wrought by their impinging 
upon one another. 

237 



238 TRUTH AND ERROR 

It has already been shown that man is primarily- 
interested in the environment. The primitive man 
first becomes interested in what he supposes to be 
the environment of molar bodies by which he is 
surrounded. A vast multitude of these bodies are 
molar, and stellar bodies are at first supposed to be 
molar, while molecular bodies are unknown, and the 
world is supposed to be composed of molar bodies. 
Then human concepts are all of molar bodies and 
their properties. 

In a judgment of apprehension, there are the 
same pentalogic elements that hitherto we have 
observed in judgments, namely, a consciousness of 
a sense impression, a choice of a concept, a conscious- 
ness of that concept, a comparison of one con- 
sciousness with the other, and a judgment which 
identifies or discriminates in affirming them to be 
alike or unlike as the case may be. The concept 
chosen is a concept of force. A judgment of 
apprehension must primordially follow a judgment 
of perception, just as a judgment of perception must 
primordially follow a judgment of sensation. This 
is the primordial order in which these judgments 
occur. 

If we judge of external force in two bodies, before 
there can be a judgment of apprehension, there 
must be a plurality of judgments of perception as in 
perception there must be a plurality of judgments of 
sensation. When two bodies act upon each other a 
change occurs in both. In order that a judgment of 
their actions upon each other may be formed, there 
must be judgments of perception; the two bodies 
must be perceived. Then their action is inferred 
from the changes which they undergo; but it is 



APPREHENSION 239 

impossible to have this judgment without the ante- 
cedent perceptions. 

Let us consider a judgment of apprehension in 
what seems to be its simplest form. A pressure on 
self is experienced. Here there must be a sense 
impression which produces a consciousness, a dis- 
crimination, a choice, a recollection, and a conscious- 
ness of a concept out of which arises a judgment of 
simple sensation. Then we consider the cause as a 
form, and judgment of it is a perception. Then we 
consider it as a force in a process, and it is a judg- 
ment of apprehension. Thus a judgment of appre- 
hension is one of a series of judgments, the first of 
sensation, the second of perception, and the third of 
apprehension. 

We become expert in making judgments. Hav- 
ing made and verified them, cognition becomes 
recognition, and recognition seems to be a very 
simple process, for the pentalogic elements do not 
arise in the cortical consciousness. The fact is well 
known that judgments of intellection as well as 
judgments of action are made instantaneously with 
precision, when they have previously been made 
with halting labor, occupying much time; still we 
are compelled to the conclusion that judgments of 
apprehension can occur only after judgments of 
perception, and these only after judgments of sensa- 
tion, although these several judgments all have 
pentalogic elements. 

There seems to be in the mind or cortex a power 
by which logically antecedent judgments are can- 
celled after they have once been made, thus saving 
time and thought. This cancellation of the ele- 
ments of judgment we have hitherto observed, 



240 TRUTH AND ERROR 

and shall be reminded of it hereafter. This is the 
psychical phenomenon known as intuition. 

Judgments of energy and work are primarily 
derived from muscular sensation or the sense of 
stress and strain. There is consciousness of stress 
when other bodies press upon us, and a conscious- 
ness of strain when our bodies press upon others. 
The consciousness is but a consciousness of change 
in self, but there is always an inference in a judg- 
ment. When I act I am conscious of the action as a 
cause, and infer the effect ; when another acts upon 
me I am conscious of the effect and infer the cause. 
But here we do not pause to treat of the conscious- 
ness of strain, but only the consciousness of stress. 

The faculties of intellection, which we have 
called sensation, perception, and apprehension, are 
connate ; that is, they are contemporaneous growths 
as concepts, but not contemporaneous judgments. 
The judgments of sensation must precede the judg- 
ments of perception, and these precede the judg- 
ments of apprehension. The last judgment formed 
may seem to follow upon the sense impression itself. 
It is the power which seems magical to the untrained 
psychologist ; the power of reaching a conclusion by 
previously gained knowledge. It is the power 
which we call habit in another realm of psychology, 
as when the trained pianist strikes many notes 
simultaneously in rapid succession. Here we 
observe that the successions of the mind are more 
rapid than the fingers, for the successive acts of will 
for every finger are interpreted by simultaneous 
muscular acts. It is the power by which the intel- 
lect considers many judgments in such rapid suc- 
cession that they appear to be simultaneous. 



APPREHENSION 241 

Heretofore, in discussing sensation, perception, 
and apprehension, the effect has been subjective 
and the cause objective, but in apprehension these 
relations of cause and effect are sometimes reversed, 
and the cause may be subjective and the effect 
objective. I am conscious not only when another 
strikes me, but I am conscious when I strike another. 
Here we have a consciousness of cause, and the 
effect is inferred. I am conscious of a flavor when 
I eat an apple, and I am conscious of an act per- 
formed by myself when I bite it. I was conscious of 
an effect of color when I saw it, and I was conscious 
of an effect upon myself when I touched it; I 
was conscious of an act when I turned my eye to it, 
and I was conscious of an act when I grasped it. 
Thus there is always an emotion connected with an 
intellection and there is always an intellection with 
an emotion. But we are not now considering emo- 
tions; we are considering intellections only. We 
cannot consider intellection without positing emo- 
tion. With this statement we go on to consider the 
subject of the intellections, our present purpose 
being simply to discover an epistomology for the 
intellections. In another book we shall treat of the 
epistomology of the emotions. 

Here again we must call attention to another very 
important fact, viz., that the individual mind is 
only one of many minds, and that it is only one of a 
still greater number of bodies — that there is myself 
and the environment, and that there is yourself and 
the environment, and that you are a part of my 
environment, and that I am a part of your environ- 
ment. Thus every body in turn is a self with an 
environment. The wind acts on me, and I act on 



242 TRUTH AND ERROR 

the wind, the tree acts on me, and I act on the 
tree ; but the wind acts on the tree and the tree on 
the wind, and these actions are all processes. The 
action of the wind on the tree and the tree on the 
wind come into my judgment, and these processes 
are cognized ; but the cognition of the action of the 
wind on the tree and that of the tree on the wind is 
inferred by their actions severally upon me. I see 
the leaves on the tree stir in the wind, but I am not 
conscious that the wind stirs the leaves. I am 
conscious that the light from the tree impinges upon 
my eye, and infer the tree and the wind with all the 
processes involved. Thus it is that the cognition of 
action and reaction between objects in the environ- 
ment is a very complex process of reasoning, for 
cognition of the interactions of the objects of the 
environment are composed of a vast congeries of 
judgments. 

Force must not be confounded with causation, 
although there can be no causation without force, 
nor can there be force without form, nor can there 
be form without kind ; but abstractly causation and 
force are wholly disparate. A sledge impinges on a 
tree ; the sledge strikes the tree and the tree strikes 
the sledge; action and reaction are equal, and 
in both vibrations are set up which are visible in 
the tree but invisible in the sledge, though none 
the less real. Now, when I consider action and 
reaction, I am considering force; but the sledge 
makes a visible indentation on the tree. When I 
am considering this indentation, I am considering 
an effect; perhaps the sledge changes some of the 
relations of its particles in crystallization; when I 
consider this effect upon the sledge I am consider- 



APPREHENSION 243 

ing causation. Suppose that, instead of striking the 
tree with a sledge, I strike it with an ax, then the 
blow produces a cut; and when I consider the 
difference between a cut of a sharp ax and 
the indentation of a sledge, I am compelled to con- 
sider differences of causation, and though the force 
of the blows are equal, the forms of the cause are 
unequal. # The blow on the tree causes both vibra- 
tion and indentation. Thus there are two effects, 
but only one blow. The blow on the sledge is 
vibration and crystallization; but there are two 
effects, but only one blow. When we consider the 
nature of the blow as action and reaction, we are 
considering force ; but when we consider the effect 
we are considering causation. Action and reaction 
are simultaneous, cause and effect are sequent. 

All intellection is abstraction; he who cannot 
accomplish and hold firmly an abstraction cannot 
psychologize. 

Apprehension is both presentative and represent- 
ative, or inductive and deductive. If we look upon 
apprehension from the standpoint of its initial 
element, it is either presentative or representative ; 
but if we look upon it from the standpoint of result 
as reason, it is inductive or deductive. The choice of 
a concept of deduction is always initiated by choice 
of another concept instead of a sense impression. 
This choice of a concept may be the one made in a 
presentative or other judgment, for judgments may 
follow judgments in extended succession, all initi- 
ated by one sense impression, but connected in the 
succession by links of recollection. From one point 
of view these may be called discursive judgments, 
and from another associated judgments. In waking 



244 TRUTH AND ERROR 

hours the mind cannot cease to make judgments. 
If sense impressions are neglected, recollected con- 
cepts take their place. The mind may be turned 
loose to make excursions by steps of judgments into 
a field where fancy leads ; but the path of the mind 
in making judgments may be directed by the will to 
the accomplishment of a purpose, in which case the 
judgments instead of being discursive are volitional. 
Representative judgments, therefore, are discursive 
or volitional. 

I see a bird flit from one bough to another. If 
my mind is free to pursue my meditations, I may 
recall the bird that I saw yesterday, and this may 
recall a nest of blue eggs, and this may recall the 
blue scarf of my little daughter, and I may go on in 
this manner to make discursive judgments; but I 
may be watching the movements of the bird for the 
purpose of studying its habits, and my judgments 
may be controlled by my will. In experience we 
pass from presentative to representative judgments, 
back and forth, with instantaneous rapidity and 
great irregularity. So we pass from discursive to 
volitional judgments instantaneously and irregularly. 

Judgments become cognitions only when they are 
verified. Judgments of sensation are verified by 
submitting them to other senses, and then they are 
subjected to perception for further arbitrament. 
Judgments of perception are submitted to appre- 
hension for verification, but judgments of appre- 
hension are verified by a faculty which we have 
hitherto not discussed. We must now set forth the 
office of apprehension in verifying judgments of 
perception. 

Forms are not properly conceived until we know 



APPREHENSION 245 

their function. We may have a vague concept of a 
form without knowing its function, but the elements 
of its structure are not full}*- grasped until we dis- 
cover their relations to function. Thus our per- 
ceptions of form are not only verified by our 
apprehensions of function, but the observation by 
which it is discovered is often dependent upon the 
effort to apprehend function. An obscure stigma 
on the pistil of a plant might be wholly unobserved 
by the man who is not acquainted with the office of 
the pistil, but the botanist is sure to perceive it. The 
painter perceives muscles with certainty when he 
observes them in action. It is thus that perception 
is verified by apprehension. 

In the human race, knowledge commences by 
the cognition of molar bodies; as culture advances 
knowledge is extended to stellar bodies in the 
direction of the vast, and to molecular bodies 
in the direction of the minute. On the other 
hand, knowledge has not only been extended into 
the vast and the minute, but it has also been ex- 
tended into the compound and complex as exhibited 
in plants and animals. This distinction has long 
been recognized in a vague way by including 
certain sciences under the term natural history, 
and other sciences under the term physics. The 
real distinction between these sciences, however, is 
this: that the natural history sciences consider 
quantities or properties that can be measured. In 
ethronomy and astronomy we consider properties 
that can be measured, and ultimately arrive at classi- 
fication; but in phytonomy and zoonomy we first 
consider properties that can be classified, and finally 
resort to their measurement. In geonomy the 



246 TRUTH AND ERROR 

sciences are broadly grouped into two classes, 
namely, geography and geology; the geographic 
sciences are sciences of measurement, the geologic 
sciences are sciences of classification. Thus we 
have quantitative and classific sciences. This is the 
old distinction of metaphysics between quantitative 
and qualitative things when properties are con- 
sidered as qualities. We have already seen in the 
chapter on qualities the nature of this error and are 
ready to rescue the term quality from the ambiguity 
into which it fell when it was considered as synony- 
mous with class, kind, or category. 

The so-called qualitative sciences, therefore, are 
more properly designated as the classific sciences. 
This broad distinction between the classific and the 
quantitative sciences deserves some further consider- 
ation. In the deductive sciences there must be some 
reason why we first look for quantity — why we come 
to study the ether, the stars, and geography quantita- 
tively, and geology, plants, and animals classifically 
or categorically. We know absolutely nothing of 
kinds of ether, but only of the properties of ether 
as belonging to one kind. We know of no method 
by which we can change the particles of ether into 
kinds. We know of but few kinds of stars, and we 
know of no method by which we can change the 
kinds of stars. There are but few kinds of air and 
of water, and these differences are only varietal, not 
specific, and the elements of mathematical geog- 
raphy are established mainly beyond the interfer- 
ence of man. We wish to adjust our conduct to 
these established facts, and hence we wish to know 
the facts. I do not propose to change the rising and 
setting of the sun, but I do wish to measure the 



APPREHENSION 247 

times when they may be expected and the length of 
the day and the night. I do not propose to change 
the gravity inherent between the several stars of the 
solar system, but I do wish to measure the force of 
gravity between star and star, that I may adjust my 
conduct to established facts when I make the ephem- 
eris for the guidance of the navigator. I do not pro- 
pose to change the atmosphere, but I measure it by 
determining its barometric quantities, the pressure 
of its winds, and the quantity of moisture which it 
contains. In the same way I measure the super- 
ficial extent of the sea and the depths at which 
the rocks are found, that I may adjust my conduct 
while navigating the sea to the facts therein discov- 
ered. Now, we could go on to illustrate these facts 
in a multitude of ways, and in an endless procession, 
and find in all those realms of science, which I have 
indicated by calling them physical or quantitative, 
that I am interested in quantities as a dweller upon 
the earth. 

In the quantitative sciences there are few kinds, 
but many of a kind. Induction is the discovery of 
a kind ; deduction is the application of the laws of a 
kind to the individuals which are included in the 
kind. The quantitative sciences are deductive, for 
deduction predominates in their study. It is thus 
that the physical sciences, ethronomy, astronomy, 
and geography are quantitative and deductive, and 
that which interests us most in these realms of 
bodies is their quantities, for though it is impossible 
to change their kinds, it is possible to adjust our- 
selves advantageously to their quantities. 

In geology, phytonomy, and zoonomy there are 
many kinds; thus there are many mineral species 



248 TRUTH AND ERROR 

and few individuals of a species as compared with 
the individuals of air and water; there are also 
many kinds of plants and comparatively few of a 
kind. Deduction is based upon the law that what is 
true of one of a kind is true of all of a kind, but 
where there are many kinds and few individuals, 
attention must be given more to the discovery of 
the kinds than to the application of the laws to indi- 
viduals ; hence in these sciences our attention must 
relatively be occupied with the discovery of kinds 
and less occupied with the application of laws. But 
more : Man by culture undertakes to change kinds, 
forms, forces, causes, and concepts. By the arts of 
constructive or synthetic chemistry and metallurgy, 
he makes many new kinds. By a great variety of 
arts he makes many new forms, shaping the rocks, 
plants, and animal substances into a variety of tools, 
utensils, machines, and fabrics. In a vast multi- 
tude of wa3^s he seeks to change the forms of bodies 
which he discovers in rocks, plants, and animals, 
and can accomplish his purpose only by changing 
the kinds. 

So man tries to change the forces of nature into 
modes which he can control, and all of these 
changes which he brings about upon the face of 
nature depend upon his recognition of causes and 
the wisdom of his selection of the nature of the 
cause; while he is thus employed in changing the 
kinds of things in nature, he is forever building up 
and changing his concepts, and all of this change 
when resolved to its simplest statement is change of 
kinds. Thus in the geologic, phytonomic, and 
zoonomic realms, man is primarily interested in 
kinds and only secondarily in quantities; in the 



APPREHENSION 249 

products of his cultural activities he is equally inter- 
ested in kinds and quantities. It is here that induc- 
tion and deduction meet on equal grounds, for the 
arts are equally inductive and deductive. 

Presentative reasoning is thus chiefly classific and 
inductive, while representative reasoning is chiefly 
quantitative and deductive. 

Now we see why bodies are symbolized as kinds 
rather than as forces, for forces are recognized as 
processes. We think of the force of a form rather 
than of the form of a force. All of the senses are 
under the control of and associated with muscles, so 
that we cannot taste an object without employing 
the muscles of the mouth, and when we designedly 
smell an object we must imbibe its vapor in the air 
through the action of our muscles by inhalation. We 
cannot touch an object without employing our 
muscles by extending the organs of locomotion, as 
hands or feet, though the object may touch us 
independently of our self-activity. So pressure is 
apprehended by us as stress or strain ; the muscles 
of the ear are strained when we intently listen ; the 
eye is especially under the control of a system of 
muscles, so that it becomes the special organ for 
the cognition of motion. We do not see motion 
chiefly because of the passing of the image across 
the retina, but because the eye, through its muscular 
apparatus, adjusts the point of vision of the image 
upon the retina to the moving body. Thus, while 
force is primordially cognized by the muscular 
sense, even motion comes to be cognized by the mus- 
cular sense when it adjusts the organ of vision to mo- 
tion. This is one of the characteristics of vision which 
eminently adapts the sense to vicarious faculties. 



250 TRUTH AND ERROR 

We may now give a more adequate definition of 
apprehension. Apprehension is the process of form- 
ing a judgment about force, or its reciprocal, motion, 
and of verifying it so as to produce a cognition. 
The difference between a cognition of motion and of 
force inheres mainly in the method of verification. 
The various methods of verification are funda- 
mentally dependent upon congruity of concepts. 
Again, apprehension as a process of intellection may 
be denned as the cognition of force. 



CHAPTER XVII 



REFLECTION 



We have now to describe that faculty of the intel- 
lect by which concepts of causation are produced. 
It will be remembered that the essential, constant, 
or absolute of this property is persistence, that the 
relative is change, and from the two time is derived ; 
then, as motion becomes force through the collision 
of particles, time becomes causation as antecedent 
and consequent, or cause and effect ; then, causation 
becomes metagenesis, and metagenesis becomes 
heredity, and heredity becomes evolution. 

Words are used with many meanings, but in 
science we are compelled to use them with one 
meaning. All psychological words are singularly 
ambiguous, because they are used as tropes to such 
an extent as to conceal their fundamental meaning. 
It is necessary to select a word to signify the cogni- 
tion of causation, or cause and effect, in the various 
phases of time and evolution, and I select the term 
reflection for this purpose. The term ma) r also have 
a meaning synonymous with contemplation, but I 
select it with the meaning which is involved in it as 
a sign for the cognition of causation. 

Once more it may be well to remind the reader 
of the total unlikeness of the properties of matter, 
so that they can not be classified. Things can be 
classified that are partly alike and partly unlike, but 
properties are totally unlike. We may consider 
properties separately, but this is abstraction, not 

251 



252 TRUTH AND ERROR 

classification, and we may schematize the properties. 
Fundamentally, we reason by abstraction because we 
consider properties severally. By reason of the total 
unlikeness of disparate properties, the most funda- 
mental and clearest distinctions in psychology are 
those which we make when we call a faculty the 
cognition of a property. Reflection is one of those 
faculties because, as the term is here defined, it is 
the cognition of the property of causation. 

Reflection, also, has the pentalogic elements, but 
in the inference the choice is of a concept of causa- 
tion. These pentalogic elements are a conscious- 
ness of a sense impression, a choice, a concept, a 
comparison, and the judgment of likeness or of 
unlikeness. 

Reflection is one of a series of judgments, and by 
its place in the series others are presupposed or 
posited. The series, so far as it has been built up, 
is composed of sensation, perception, apprehension, 
and reflection. I see an oak, and may make a judg- 
ment of sensation and conclude that it is green. I 
see an oak, and I may make a judgment of percep- 
tion and conclude that it is a tree. I see an oak, 
and may make a judgment of apprehension, and 
conclude that its leaves and branches are in motion ; 
I see an oak, and make a judgment of reflection and 
conclude that the motion in the tree is caused by 
the wind. These judgments differ from one another 
in the nature of the concept recalled, and these 
concepts differ in degrees of compounding. 

Why do I make a judgment of sensation? Because 
I wish to note the color which I am painting. Why 
do I make a judgment of perception? Because I 
wish to seek the shade of the tree? Why do I make 



REFLECTION 253 

a judgment of apprehension? Because I am looking 
for birds. Why do I make a judgment of reflec- 
tion? Because I wish to note the direction of the 
wind. Here again we see that the particular 
inference which we make depends upon the choice 
of a concept, and that this choice of the concept 
depends upon our purpose. 

The concepts of reflection are compounded of 
judgments of causes and effects of events. Thus 
by reflection the relations of time are compounded 
into the relations of causation, and then these are 
compounded into relations of metagenesis, and these 
are compounded into relations of heredity, and 
these are compounded into relations of develop- 
ment, and these are compounded into relations of 
evolution. 

It will be seen that the concepts of causation are 
exceedingly compound. In the practical affairs of 
life, events are of profound importance, for the 
events of yesterday affect the events of today, and 
those of today will have a consequence in the 
events of tomorrow; thus life is a constant dis- 
cipline. 

The time of which we speak is not void time, but 
the time of states and events, for of void time we 
know absolutely nothing, and language fails to 
express any concept of void time, and any reifica- 
tion of it is a pseudo-idea — a mythological notion. 

It must be understood that, as the cognition of 
form comes by experience, so cognition of force 
comes by experience. Cognition of form antedates 
the cognition of energy only in the sense that the 
full knowledge of form is necessary before there is 
full knowledge of force ; the experience upon which 



254 TRUTH AND ERROR 

they both depend is contemporaneous. This may- 
be stated in another way to be made clear. Cogni- 
tion of kind by sensation arises with a certain degree 
of experience; cognition of form arises with a 
higher degree of experience; cognition of force 
arises with a still higher degree of experience ; but 
judgments of kind, judgments of form, and judg- 
ments of force are accumulated contemporaneously. 
So concepts of causation succeed concepts of force ; 
but the judgments of causation are contemporaneous 
with the judgments of force, form, and kind, and 
there can be no judgments of causation without 
judgments of force, form, and kind. 

Here we arrive at a paradox, as it seems, to those 
who fail to comprehend the nature of causation. 
Consider a valley down which a river runs. There 
can be no river without a valley, yet the river has 
caused the valley. You affirm that the river has 
carved the valley, which seems to be a paradox; 
there must have been a valley in order that the 
water should be gathered into a stream; and that 
the river presupposes or posits the valley. 

You explain that a small tract of land is gradually 
left bare by the retiring sea, that is, the land is slightly 
upheaved; the rain falls upon the land and carves 
channels, the tract of land is extended, new chan- 
nels are formed and the old channels are deepened; 
still the upheaval goes on with increasing dry land, 
multiplication of channels, deepening of channels, 
and the widening of channels into valleys, and this 
continues until at last a great area of land is upheaved 
from the sea, and the rains have carved channels 
and the channels have coalesced again and again 
until a great valley is formed through which a river 



REFLECTION 255 

rolls. The river in the process of its growth has 
carved a valley, and the enlarging land has at last 
caught water enough to fill a river; the growth of 
the valley and of the river are contemporaneous, but 
the forming of the valley logically succeeds to the 
falling of the rain and the flowing of the river with 
its lateral streams; that is, effect succeeds cause. 

This is the metaphysical fallacy which mistakes 
an effect for a primordial cause, and practically says 
that the valley existed before the river, for it gathers 
the rain which constitutes the river. The valley 
was from the first, but the river is caught by the 
valley from the rain which falls. Examine the 
doctrine of presupposition in metaphysics, and in 
every case a fallacy will be found. 

In this manner the experiences of sensation, per- 
ception, and apprehension are connate, they spring 
up together, and yet concepts of sensation precede 
concepts of understanding, and concepts of appre- 
hension precede concepts of reflection. One part of 
the doctrine of presupposition, as it is put in 
metaphysics, is a fallacy, and is replaced by the 
doctrine of causation, which explains that that which 
was supposed to be antecedent is consequent, or that 
which was supposed to be cause is effect. This is 
the great contribution made by science in demon- 
strating the laws of evolution. Another part of the 
metaphysical doctrine is erroneous in assuming that 
the concomitants or properties are derived one from 
another, one school affirming that all of the 
properties are derived from force, the other that 
they are all derived from intellection. 

There is a valid concept involved in the use of the 
term presupposition, so often occurring in meta- 



256 TRUTH AND ERROR 

physics, for when one property is considered 
abstractly the others are known to exist; though not 
overtly affirmed, they are implied, and presup- 
position used in this manner and understood in this 
manner would be just as good a term as implication 
or concomitancy ; the term presupposition leads 
astray when it suggests the further idea that the 
things implied are antecedent things, instead of 
antecedently known things. 

Judgments of evolution are constituted in the 
same manner as other judgments, and to become 
certitudes they must also be verified. But judg- 
ments are consolidated as habits of thought; thus 
we come across the phenomena of intuition. When 
the mind makes one judgment and uses other 
knowledge which was derived by previous judgment 
to make a new judgment apparently far remote 
from the first, this new judgment is said to be a 
judgment of intuition, for the steps seem to be 
cancelled in reflection, and the long course of 
reasoning is made to appear as a direct result. 

I see the track of a man in the sand. The left 
track is full, the right track shows only the impres- 
sion of the toe. I see the one and then the other, 
and I infer that the man was lame and walked upon 
his right toe. John Smith is lame, and I infer that 
John Smith has walked along the trail. John Smith 
lives at a distance ; I have heard that his mother is 
ill, and that he has been sent for, and I infer that 
he has passed along the trail to the home of his 
mother. Thus a series of judgments flash through 
my mind when I see the half footprint, and so 
speedily do these judgments arise in succession that 
the intervening steps seem to be cancelled from 



REFLECTION 257 

intellection, and I appear to infer from the foot- 
print directly to the visit of John Smith to his 
mother; but in fact I have carried on a series of 
judgments derived from elements of knowledge that 
have been recalled by the sight of the footprint. 

This reasoning in series by unrecognized steps is 
intuition. It is the same old story of habit. Cer- 
tain kinds of reasoning, like certain kinds of mus- 
cular activity, come by frequent repetition to be so 
easily accomplished that the processes involved are 
unrecognized by the mind. Perhaps this can be 
explained by the theory that in recalling one con- 
cept we recall others with which it is associated, 
reviving them as they are woven into the structure 
of the cortex by the act of choice. All judgments 
of causation are more or less serial in this manner, 
and as most of them are habitual they become 
intuitive. For this reason it is often more difficult 
to analyze judgments of reflection than judgments 
of apprehension ; and more difficult to analyze judg- 
ments of apprehension than judgments of percep- 
tion ; but by careful attention to the subject and by 
the acquisition of skill in introspection, it can always 
be discovered that every judgment of reflection is 
founded upon a consciousness and involves an infer- 
ence which recalls a compound concept, and to 
reach the stage of certitude it must be verified. 
Finally, it must be remembered that intuition, 
which is supposed by careless thinkers to be occult, 
is in fact developed by experience. Such is the 
nature of presentative judgments of reflection. 

We have yet to consider representative judgments 
of reflection. Again, we see that as presentative 
judgments follow upon sense impression, so repre- 



258 TRUTH AND ERROR 

sentative judgments follow upon choice, and the 
choice may be discursive or volitional. The dis- 
cursive choice is sporadic, and by following such 
concepts the stream of thought is directed in a 
meandering course that flows to nowhere ; but the 
choice for a fixed purpose, in which there is an 
interest, leads to results that influence the conduct 
of life. The presentative judgments of reflection 
are removed from the sense impression by intui- 
tional or by more deliberate judgments of sensation, 
perception, and understanding, so that the judg- 
ments of reflection, both presentative and repre- 
sentative, are more deliberative than of the lower 
faculties. 

When both cause and effect are external, the 
judgments of them are mediated by other judgments, 
the causes of which are external and the effects 
internal ; hence the judgments of external cause and 
effect are still further removed from sense impres- 
sion, so that there is again another degree of delib- 
eration. It is this characteristic that has led to the 
selection of the term reflection to designate the 
faculty, and although the reflective judgment may 
never have been defined as it has been here, yet this 
definition will serve to reveal the unconscious wis- 
dom of the selection of the term in current speech. 
In judgments of original cognition the pentalogic 
elements can always be discovered by introspection, 
but in the judgments of recognition it is difficult to 
discover them in the cortical consciousness. When 
cognition is fairly accomplished recognition there- 
after becomes instantaneous. 

Audition is the primordial sense of causation. 
Sound comes to us through a medium, and primor- 



REFLECTION 259 

dial man has no knowledge of this medium ; he does 
not recognize the ambient air. Thus he thinks that 
sound is something emitted from bodies, just as 
Newton believed that light was something emitted 
from bodies, and Plato that forms were emitted from 
bodies. So the savage looked about him for the 
cause, and often the cause as a form he could not see, 
and as he knew nothing of molecular force he formed 
no concepts of force in relation to sound ; so his con- 
cepts of sound were concepts of cause until he could 
discover the cause as a form. It was thus that con- 
cepts of cause were primitively generated in the 
mind of man. Hearing is also the sense by which 
time, the reciprocal of cause, is first conceived. 
We must remember that properties are concomitant, 
and though the faculties operate abstractly in that 
they primarily conceive properties as abstract, yet 
the indissolubility of the concomitants compels us to 
consider the manifestation of one property as the 
symbol of all others. In this manner the senses all 
become vicarious, and we make judgments with one 
sense that we might make with another. Of all the 
primordial senses we have hitherto discussed as the 
primal sense of a faculty, that of hearing is the most 
facile to perform the functions of the others, though 
we shall hereafter observe that seeing is the grand 
vicar of the senses. 

Judgments of reflection are verified by the judg- 
ments of a higher faculty," but they themselves are 
used to verify the judgments of lower faculties. 
Motion and force are expressed in rapidly passing 
events, but causes produce effects that remain; 
causes and effects are states ; forces are events that 
separate states; hence it is that the judgments of 



260 TRUTH AND ERROR 

understanding are relegated to those of reflection 
for verification. 

I suppose that I see a woodpecker tapping a tree. 
I look and see the fresh pit made, and my judgment 
is confirmed. I obtain the glimpse of an animal 
running through the forest, and think it to be a 
wolf. I come to the spot where it was supposed to 
be, and the tracks of a deer are seen, and so I cor- 
rect my judgment. Thus a higher judgment will 
serve as a verification of a lower. 

Judgments may be measured. I judge of a dis- 
tance, and find, when the distance is measured, the 
error of the judgment. I do not find the error of 
the line measured, but only the error of the judg- 
ment made. So, whenever we make a judgment of 
length or distance or size or weight or mass, or 
what not, we measure our judgments by measuring 
the what-nots judged. All judgments are liable to 
error, and cognition comes only with verification. 
In quantitative judgments the liability to error is 
infinite as that term is used by mathematicians, and 
all judgments must be verified unless the amount 
of error may be neglected. 

In scientific research verification is often by 
measurement. Counting itself is measuring, and 
the sum is the number of units which the measured 
body contains, and these units are units of a kind. 
It is only in counting that the units are natural ; all 
other units are conventional in that something other 
than the thing measured is taken as the unit or 
standard. I measure time by the revolution of the 
earth, by the revolution of a hand on the dial of 
a clock, or by the flow of water from a clepsydra. 
Thus one measurement is mediated by another, and 



REFLECTION 261 

different standards are taken. The nature of 
measurement is well understood except in so far as 
it relates to psychological phenomena; in this 
realm metaphysicians seem wholly to misconceive 
its nature. I cannot measure the number of the 
ultimate particles of a body by counting them, but I 
may measure the relative number of its atoms by 
weighing it. I do not determine its force, but its 
mass only, when I weigh the body, for the total 
force in the body is the sum of its motion in all its 
incorporations. A pound of powder has much more 
force than that which is measured as a pound. 
What we really arrive at in weighing a body is the 
proportionate number of its particles. I may meas- 
ure the length of the wall by counting the brick 
lengths in the wall. I cannot measure this stick by 
counting the number of particles as atoms, mole- 
cules, or cells which constitute its length, but I use a 
conventional unit, say an inch, and I find it ten 
inches long. Had I taken some natural unit I 
might have found it, say, ten million molecules in 
length. Now, what have I measured? Only the 
distance which separates the positions of the mole- 
cules in its termini, but I have not measured the 
extension of any of the molecules, for probably they 
are separated by interspaces filled with ether, and 
may be with air. It is thus that I measure space. 
I cannot measure form, for form is internal structure 
and external shape. 

I have a body which is of very irregular shape, 
and hence I cannot well determine its extension in 
three dimensions, but I put it into a beaker of 
water, and determine how much it displaces, and 
measure that; thus, while I do not measure the 



262 TRUTH AND ERROR 

body itself, I measure its equivalent. Now this 
leads us logically to the statement that of the five 
concomitants in every particle or body every one 
can be measured, and it is only necessary to meas- 
ure one property to have a measure of them all. 
But more than this, I must measure one property in 
terms of another; thus, I measure motion in terms 
of space or length, and I measure speed in terms of 
length and time. We must remember that meas- 
urement is always a conventional process to serve a 
purpose, and the way in which we measure a thing 
is by some device for the purpose, and the purpose is 
always the relation of the thing measured to some 
other thing. I measure force as motion, so I meas- 
ure the force of the cause in its effect, and measure 
the effect in space elements. I measure a judgment 
by measuring the thing of which the judgment is 
made ; thus, I judge of a distance, and may measure 
the distance to determine the amount of error in my 
judgment. It is in this manner that I can measure 
judgments. 

I cannot longer dwell on this subject to set 
forth the devices by which judgments are meas- 
ured, but must content myself with the statement 
that the attempt to measure judgments has but 
recently been made, and that already there are 
many devices. All of the properties can be reduced 
to or considered as number. Space can be con- 
sidered as number when its elements are counted 
in natural units, or it can be considered as num- 
ber when its elements are measured in conven- 
tional units. Motion can be considered as space, 
and then as number. Time may also be considered 
as motion, then as space, and finally as number; 



REFLECTION 263 

judgments may be considered as time, and time as 
motion, and motion as space, and space as number. 
The device by which the other properties are con- 
sidered as number is measurement, and measure- 
ment is experimentation. 

We are prepared to give a more adequate defini- 
tion of reflection. Reflection is the faculty of 
cognizing causation. Again, we may define it as 
the process of making a judgment about causation 
or its reciprocal, time, which judgment must be veri- 
fied to become a cognition. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

IDEATION 

We have seen that consciousness is one of the 
essentials of an animate particle ; that sensation is 
the first mental property or faculty of an animate 
body; that perception is the second mental property 
or faculty of an animate body; that apprehension is 
the third mental property or faculty of an animate 
body; and that reflection is the fourth mental prop- 
erty or faculty of an animate body. Now, we have 
to consider the fifth mental property or faculty of 
an animate body. We form judgments about con- 
sciousness and choice, and about judgments and 
concepts; that is, we cognize mind. We need a 
term to express the forming of judgments about 
judgments, or of cognizing cognitions. For this 
purpose I shall use the term ideation. Ideation, 
therefore, as the term is here used, is the act of 
making judgments about judgments which, when 
verified, are cognitions. 

We are conscious of our own judgments, but we 
infer the judgments of others. We may find the 
judgments of others to be like those we have already 
formed, or we may find that they are new to us. 
These new judgments we may accept or reject. 
When speech is developed and education is insti- 
tuted, acception comes to play a very important role 
in mental acquisition. 

Judgments of ideation are connate with all other 
judgments, but they are compounded of them and 

264 



IDEATION 265 

represent higher degrees of relativity; hence it is 
more difficult to trace them into their constituent 
judgments, yet trained introspection accomplishes 
this feat. 

Before the laws of evolution were discovered and 
an absolute difference between man and the lower 
animal was supposed to exist, it was often affirmed 
that this distinction consists in the absence in the 
brute of knowledge about mind, that only man 
knows himself to be a thinking being, or, as we are 
here using the term, only man has the faculty of 
ideation. This is one of the affirmations which men 
are ready and prone to make before they learn that 
cognition is verified judgment, and that our judg- 
ments are guesses, while guesses are often more 
current than certitudes. With this idea was associ- 
ated another, namely, that animals do not reason, 
but have instinct, there being no realization of the 
fact that certain practical judgments are repeated 
so often that they become intuitive as acts become 
habitual. Instinct or intuition and habit will 
require further consideration in a subsequent book. 

We must now develop a little further the nature 
of the faculty of ideation, by considering the process 
of forming judgments of ideation. I hear a voice, 
and by experience know that its tone expresses 
surprise. Thus I form a judgment of an emotion in 
another. I am confronted with an antagonist on a 
field of battle, and see him point his howitzer at the 
column of troops in which I move, and infer that he 
has a deadly purpose. The lower animal makes 
judgments of ideation in this manner, and uses 
these judgments in guiding its own conduct. With 
mankind in higher culture this faculty is greatly 



266 TRUTH AND ERROR 

developed. All words are signs of concepts, and all 
combined words that express thought are judgments, 
and the symbols of ideas, both spoken and written, 
constitute the pabulum of higher culture. Thus we 
not only cognize the intellections of others, but at 
the same time we accept their judgments as judg- 
ments of our own. 

Ideation, as the term is here used, is a cognition of 
intellections in that manifestations of intellections 
are cognized by forming concepts of them. In sensa- 
tion manifestations are conceived as expressions of 
kind. In perception they are conceived as expres- 
sions of form; in apprehension they are conceived 
as expressions of force ; in reflection they are con- 
ceived as expressions of cause and effect; in idea- 
tion they are conceived as expressions of mind. 

The constitution of the judgment which has 
already been exhibited four times must here be 
repeated. It appears as a consciousness of a sense 
impression, a choice, a reproduction of a conscious- 
ness of a concept of ideation, which, by comparison, 
make a judgment of ideation. The concept which 
is reproduced by the choice, is still more highly com- 
pound than in the lower grades of cognition, for the 
acts which animate bodies perform are first inter- 
preted as kinds, then as forms, then as forces, then 
as causations, and finally as concepts. The series is 
complete when the judgment of ideation is made. 

Like all other judgments, those of ideation are 
presentative and representative; representative 
judgments are discursive and volitional. There is 
no need to repeat the discussion setting forth the 
nature of judgments in these respects. 

Vision is the primordial sense of ideation. We 



IDEATION 267 

see the motions in others, which I have heretofore 
called self-activity, and interpret them as symbols 
of soul. By soul I mean all intellectual and emo- 
tional judgments made by the animate being. The 
individual is conscious of the judgments made by 
himself, but he infers the judgment made by others. 
The judgments that others make are inferred from 
the signs which others make. I see the leaves 
tremble, the clouds move, the rain fall, the river 
flow, and innumerable motions in the mineral world ; 
but I do not consider them as signs of intellect and 
emotion. There are other signs, however, which I 
observe in animate beings, and especially in human 
activities, which I do interpret as marks of soul. 
These signs are those which are produced only by 
those bodies which, being animate, have motility. 
The nature of this motility we have elsewhere 
explained and we have called it self-activity, which 
must not be confounded with self-motion, for self- 
motion is inherent in every particle, while self- 
activity is self-directed motion in a body. 

Only animate bodies have this self-activity. But 
according to our hypothesis the ultimate particles of 
inanimate bodies have self-activity in so far as they 
manifest choice or affinity, while plant bodies seem 
to have self-activity in their cells. Neglecting this 
hypothesis, animate bodies certainly have conscious- 
ness and choice in their cells. Now, as one inanimate 
body has inherent motion in its several particles, 
which are organized in a hierarchy of bodies, the 
inanimate body cannot be deflected except by col- 
lision with another body, but the animate body can 
deflect its own motion as a body by metabolism, and 
by deflecting its own motion as a body it can deflect 



268 TRUTH AND ERROR 

the motion of others. It is this power in the ani- 
mate body of deflecting its own motion at will and of 
deflecting the motions of others by colliding against 
them at will, which is the sign or mark of mind in 
those bodies to which we attribute mind, and 
which exhibit more and more the purpose and 
ability to convey concepts to others, until among the 
higher animals a conventional sign language is pro- 
duced, which becomes oral in the higher animals, but 
oral and written speech in man. Without words 
only emotions can be conveyed, whereas with words 
intellection can be exchanged. Gesture language 
may become gesture speech, oral language oral 
speech, and picture writing written speech. It is 
with this higher condition of language as speech 
that we are chiefly interested in ideation. Every- 
thing in nature has manifestations which may be 
interpreted, but only animate beings purposely con- 
vey concepts to one another. 

Ideation is reenforced by other demotic agencies 
than those of speech. The pleasures, the industries, 
the institutions, and the opinions of mankind, are all 
expressed as human activities, and manifest the con- 
cepts by which they are produced; but we need not 
dwell on the subject here. 

Through the agency of language we discover the 
fifth property of bodies. When we are interested in 
them and interest grows apace we may wish to 
know what those bodies say instead of what they 
are ; it is then that language becomes speech, but 
culture continues to advance and speech becomes 
designed or purposeful instruction. Then all the 
appliances of instruction are developed until one of 
the principal occupations of mankind is the giving 



IDEATION 269 

and receiving of instruction and the acquiring of 
concepts from one another, in which process the 
instructor is more instructed than the pupil, for the 
speaker in the organization of that which is spoken 
learns more than the hearer. 

Now the eye, by its peculiar construction with 
apparatus for accommodation to distance and direc- 
tion, is especially adapted to the reception of sense 
impressions that imply self-activity, hence it is the 
primary sense organ for the faculty of ideation. While 
its fundamental function is ideation, by reason of the 
concomitance of properties it becomes a vicarious 
organ for others. 

Every one of the sense organs becomes an organ 
for and of the faculties. In the first stage of mind, 
while the organs of taste and smell are primarily 
the organs of sensation, the other organs interpret 
the sense impressions coming to them as symbols 
of flavor. In the second stage, while touch is the 
primary organ of form, the sense impressions coming 
to the other organs are interpreted as symbols of 
form. In the third stage the muscular sense is the 
primary organ of understanding, but all the other 
organs interpret the sense impression coming to 
them as symbols of forces. In the fourth stage, while 
the organ of audition is the primary organ of reflec- 
tion, all the other organs interpret the sense im- 
pressions coming to them as symbols of causation. 
In the fifth stage, while the eye is the primary 
organ of ideation, all the other organs may interpret 
the sense impressions coming to them as if they 
were symbols of concepts. 

We have seen how the judgments of the lower 
faculties are verified by the higher, but now ideation 



270 TRUTH AND ERROR 

is the court of last resort. In the structure of the 
mind incongruous judgments throw the machinery 
of reason out of gear. So many judgments have 
been found fallacious by every individual in the race 
of men, and fallacious judgments have led to such 
dire disasters, and have been repeated so often in 
matters of profound moment, as well as in matters 
of superficial consequence, that there has grown up 
a habit of mind by which incongruity of judgments 
is taken as a signal that danger lurks in the way. 
The mind cannot rest content with an incongruity. 
It is the ultimate spur to all intellectual activity, for 
we may forego the pleasures of the mind when we 
know that others may be enjoyed, but oftentimes we 
cannot neglect the dangers of false judgments. We 
must make a practical solution of every incongruous 
judgment at the time, but every intelligent man 
yearns for an ultimate solution, thus the world is on 
the qui vive for knowledge as for the breath of life. 
Those who teach the doctrine of the unknowable 
offer stones for bread and vipers for fish. 

All our concepts must be congruous ; the demand 
for congruity is inexorable. A man may accept a 
verbal explanation of the facts of science and believe 
that he has a world of congruous concepts, but 
experience will find incongruity, which he may con- 
ceal for himself in a jugglery of words, but others 
will detect it when they are announced. 

This final faculty in verification resorts to the 
multitudinous concepts of which the mind is pos- 
sessed and when one is incongruous with others it 
demands a reinvestigation of that one. Sometimes 
the one is right and the many are wrong, and the 
multitude must be made to establish congruity with 



IDEATION 27I 

one, but meanwhile the one multiplies until it 
becomes the many and the fallacious judgments the 
few. 

All scientific research is a process of reinvesti- 
gating our concepts and of adjusting them to the light 
which has been shed upon them by some broader 
generalization than we have been wont to make. 
We gain a concept by induction and immediately 
we apply it in a multitude of ways by deduction, and 
in making these applications we discover our fal- 
lacious judgments and go on forever to readjust our 
concepts. Thus there is trial and failure, trial and 
failure, until at last there is trial and success ; then 
a new vista is opened into the universe. 

The sensations, perceptions, apprehensions, reflec- 
tions, and ideations of the individual are not 
exhausted by an enumeration of these derived by 
the individual in his converse with nature. From 
his ancestors he inherits the powers of thought, with 
his organism, which is expectant and apt in judg- 
ment and conception. It is ready for this work, as 
it has been developed through untold generations of 
ancestral life, and apt, as it has been trained by the 
experience of untold ages. With the power and 
skill thus developed it is able to deal with and 
rationally idealize an immeasurable body of facts 
which it cannot discover for itself — facts gathered 
in other lands by other minds and conveyed to it by 
the agency of language. 

The landsman may learn from the mariner, the 
dweller in the valley from the mountaineer, the 
denizen of the forest from the denizen of the prairie, 
and he who dwells where tropical hurricanes wash 
the coral reefs with the waves of the sea, may learn 



272 TRUTH AND ERROR 

from him who dwells among the cliffs of ice and 
sees the bergs of crystal plunged from their glacial 
homes into the depths of the sea. This process of 
forming judgments we call acception. 

In converse with nature, man transforms or inter- 
prets symbols of sense impressions into concepts of 
sensation, perception, apprehension, reflection, and 
ideation. In contact with these natural symbols he 
devises a new world of symbols with which he inter- 
prets concepts of others. Still they are judgments 
founded upon the five factors or constituents of 
bodies, and nothing more enters into them. So we 
still find mind dealing with number, space, motion, 
time, and judgment, or their reciprocals kind, form, 
force, causation, and concept. 

Words themselves are of great assistance to idea- 
tion in that they symbolize with one word great 
groups of judgments which we call concepts. Thus 
it is that the ego is diverted from the material world 
to the ideal world, and caused to dwell abstractly 
upon judgments and their compounds. Perhaps 
abstraction is more nearly complete in the considera- 
tion of judgments and their compounds than in the 
consideration of times and their compounds, motions 
and their compounds, spaces and their compounds, 
and numbers and their compounds. In fact, this 
abstraction is so thorough that conception is often 
supposed to have perfect independence of matter, 
although no conception or judgment is known which 
is not a concomitant of matter. 

A crude speech is developed by all animal life — 
a general sign language by which every animal 
holds converse with the members of its own species. 
This general sign language is inherited by man and 



IDEATION 273 

gradually developed by him ; but oral speech soon 
leads the way in the development of a still higher 
language. This oral language is invented by minute 
increments born of experience; finally, written 
language is developed from lowly beginnings in 
picture writings — first, words are developed, and 
these words are grouped in sentences, and this group- 
ing reacts upon the words themselves until parts of 
speech are developed, for, in primeval languages, 
there are no parts of speech as organs of the sentence, 
as we now understand this term. 

Words are signs of concepts, not of judgments, 
for every word stands for an assemblage of judg- 
ments, and to express a judgment it is necessary to 
formulate a proposition. Yet we cannot get away 
from sensation, perception, apprehension, reflection, 
and ideation. The words themselves are spoken or 
written, and sense impressions are necessary to pro- 
duce the changes in self upon which consciousness 
is founded, for consciousness, as we use the term, is 
awareness of change in self. Thus the spoken word 
is a sound impression upon the organ of hearing; 
the written word a light impression upon the organ 
of vision, and the impression becomes a symbol for 
sensation, or a symbol for perception, or a symbol for 
apprehension, or a symbol for reflection, or a symbol 
for ideation. So all words are symbols for ideation, 
but the symbols are conventional — invented by man- 
kind for the purpose as an addition to the natural 
symbols. Not that languages are invented as fully 
developed, but the elements of every language and 
the combinations of these elements are invented by 
minute increments. To understand the word itself 
it is necessary that there shall be a consciousness 



274 TRUTH AND ERROR 

and an inference leading to a judgment that the 
word is such or such, as a sound or a written symbol, 
and the whole process by sensation and perception 
must be repeated with every word in order to dis- 
tinguish it as a word. Then perception, apprehen- 
sion, and reflection are all employed in confirming a 
judgment about the meaning of the word, and no 
word has any meaning until it is interpreted into 
concepts of number, space, motion, time, or judg- 
ment, one or all. 

Here we have especially to note that acception 
becomes not the sole but the chief agency for the 
development of the concepts of mind. 

And now on symbol wings as magical words, the 
soul flies to all the realms of the universe, learning 
not only of the worlds of space and time, but 
penetrating into the arcana of other souls. 

By the invention of speech man has acquired an 
inexhaustible resource from which to draw ideas, 
but by this artificial method dangers are involved. 
Imagination often outruns the ideas expressed in 
words, producing illusions, but usually harmless 
illusions. My friend tells me of a cove carpeted 
with rare flowers. I listen and in my mind a brook 
tumbles in a cascade from a cliff above and the cove 
seems a deep narrow gorge with fringing rocks and 
trees standing at the foot of the cliffs. I even per- 
ceive in my fancy the pathway by which it is reached, 
and measure off its distance in my mind's eye. 
Unexpectedly we come upon the brook. I had 
imagined it to be much farther off. Thus I had 
misinterpreted the statement of my friend. We 
turn up by its bank into the glen. As we enter the 
cove, instead of finding a narrow glen, with tower- 



IDEATION 275 

ing walls and overhanging rocks, I see a stretch of 
pasturage land inclosed by rocks that are broken 
back in hills, and up the valley beyond the pasturage 
lands there is a deserted cabin. Near the cabin a 
great spring gushes from the foot of the rock, and 
about it trees grow. While my companion gathers 
flowers I muse. How strange that his words created 
so vivid a picture in my mind, and that this picture 
should be wholly the creation of my own imagina- 
tion, having no counterpart in the reality ! I fancied 
a narrow cove with towering cliffs, tall trees, and a 
cataract. It is a semicircular glen with broken 
walls of rock, grass-land and a great spring. 

Words are signs of ideas to be interpreted by the 
imagination of the hearer, and a true or a false inter- 
pretation may be given them, depending upon the 
knowledge already existing in the mind of the 
hearer. 

There is a constant tendency to learn words with- 
out meanings, or words with vague meanings, 
and to use them with a semblance of expressing 
ideas. No word is properly understood when it 
does not stand for an idea about one or more of 
the concomitants of body or about the relations 
of these concomitants. Here we have a crucial test 
for the legitimate use of a word; if it does not 
express a number, a space, a motion, a time, or a 
judgment, or their reciprocals as kind, form, force, 
causation, or concept of a body or a relation of one 
body to another, it expresses a pseudo-idea. A 
word used to express an idea of an unknown thing 
may become legitimate by the unknown becoming 
known, but a word used to express an unknowable 
thing is blank voice. The habit of learning words 



276 TRUTH AND ERROR 

without learning the ideas for which they stand is 
worse than an inanity — it is a vice, for the mind 
is irresistibly led into the practice of informing such 
words with vague and misleading meanings. Select 
any word in common usage to express the leading 
ideas in the metaphysical discussion of the nature 
of the universe, and follow it where it occurs many 
times, and you can invariably discover that it is used 
with many meanings wholly incompatible with one 
another, and the foundation of these meanings will 
be discovered to be something unknowable — a noth- 
ing, an abstract attribute reined as having concrete 
existence. Teach the word cat to a child who has 
never seen a cat and it will imagine a hobgoblin. 

Words often have many meanings; learn these 
many meanings of many concepts, put them together 
as one compound idea and you have an absurdity; 
but such is often the method of metaphysical reason- 
ing. Akin to this is to use the word as a metaphor 
and then to forget the metaphor. See how Hegel 
uses the word mediation. A mediator is one who 
comes between others ; the ether mediates the light 
between the sun and the earth; the air mediates the 
sound between the voice and the ear ; so the messen- 
ger mediates the message, and the term properly 
means to bear from one to another. A man may 
bear his own letter to his friend and by a figure of 
speech may be said to be his own mediator. But 
when you forget the figure of speech and call the 
man a mediator who acts upon another you have 
used the word illegitimately, and when you go still 
further to speak of the action of a person upon him- 
self as mediation, you have reduced the term to an 
absurdity. Such are the methods of ontologic 



IDEATION 277 

reasoning as distinguished from scientific reasoning, 
which holds words to single and invariable mean- 
ings. "If thine eye be single the whole body is full 
of light." It is not strange that Hegel rendered 
the world into terms of multitudinous contradictions. 
It was the trick of tricks, the juggle of juggles, to 
play such pranks with the terms of philosophy. 



CHAPTER XIX 

INTELLECTIONS 

I shall now review the doctrines set forth in these 
chapters on the five faculties and make a more com- 
prehensive statement of certain fundamental prin- 
ciples. 

In this volume psychology is treated only as a 
system of intellections, while the emotions are 
neglected. The subject matter is the beginning of 
an epistomology or theory of cognition, which will 
require another volume for its completion, when a 
volume of psychology will follow. 

It has been set forth that consciousness is self- 
consciousness. When the self is conscious of an 
effect on self it infers a cause, and when it is con- 
scious of being a cause it infers an effect. In the 
simplest judgment causation is involved — one of the 
terms being a cause, the other an effect. When con- 
sciousness is of the effect, the inference is of the 
cause, and we have a judgment of intellection. 
When the consciousness is of the cause, the inference 
is of the effect, and we have a judgment of emotion. 
When the cause and the effect are both internal we 
have an emotion. I use the term consciousness solely 
as awareness of self and not in its general significa- 
tion as cognition. We cannot be conscious of an ex- 
ternal object, but we are conscious of our judgments 
of external objects. In the case of the animate body, 
which has conscious particles acting on one another, it 
may be conscious of both cause and effect in the 

278 



INTELLECTIONS 279 

body, because the particles of the body are external 
to one another, and the ganglia, with their con- 
necting fibrous nerves, constitute the organism by 
which the consciousness of the particles is ultimately 
transmitted to the cortex. Thus there is a con- 
sciousness of the cortex, a consciousness of the sub- 
ordinate ganglia, and a consciousness of the particles ; 
so that when the self acts on self there are both con- 
sciousness and inference. 

The cause at one time is considered as a kind, at 
another time as a form, at another a force, at 
another a causation, and at another time as a concept, 
giving rise to five faculties of intellection, as 
follows : First, cognition of kind, which is the faculty 
of sensation; second, cognition of form, which is 
the faculty of perception ; third, cognition of force, 
which is the faculty of apprehension; fourth, cog- 
nition of causation, which is the faculty of reflection ; 
and, fifth, cognition of conception, which is the 
faculty of ideation. 

If this doctrine is true then, fundamentally, we 
cognize by properties which we find to be concom- 
itant in particles and bodies, and thereby reach a 
cognition of particles or bodies. It will be seen 
that judgments are fundamentally abstractions, but 
that comprehension gives them concrete validity. 
In the first stage they are judgments, in the second 
stage they are cognitions. 

A judgment is a process of elements. First, 
there is a consciousness of a sense impression. Second, 
there is a desire to know its cause; that is, what 
produced it; what can the impression signify? 
Third, there is a guess or a choice of some external 
object as its cause, which revives the consciousness 



280 TRUTH AND ERROR 

of the concept of the object chosen. Fourth, this 
second consciousness is compared with the first. Fifth, 
a judgment is made of likeness or unlikeness 
between the terms compared. The first cause, when 
it is sense impression, is an act of something in the 
environment, but when it is a reproduction it is a 
self-activity. The second cause is always a self- 
activity. 

All judgments are judgments of cause and effect. 
The consciousness may be of the effect and the 
inference of the cause, or the consciousness may be 
of the cause and the inference of the effect, or the 
consciousness may be of the effect and of the cause 
when self acts on self, and then the inference is of 
their relation, one to the other. Again, both cause 
and effect may be external, when there will be two 
judgments, each one of which will contain a con- 
sciousness and an inference, and their relation to 
each other as cause and effect will be by inference. 
Thus inference may be in the second, or higher 
degree. 

There are two of the psychic elements in a judg- 
ment that demand further consideration. These are 
consciousness and choice. Here consciousness is 
awareness of an effect, the cause of which is an act 
of the external world thrust upon self at the present 
time, or upon self at sundry past times. The 
inference, or interpretation, is a choice of, or guess 
at, the cause. Thus consciousness is of self, but 
choice or inference is of the object. 

I have spoken of the choice as a guess or an 
hypothesis, but in cognition it is always an invention, 
and as an invention it requires the conscious time 
of deliberation. The mind always invents the cause, 



INTELLECTIONS 281 

and it is because it is an invention that it must be 
verified; but in recognition the invention is already- 
made and the process of judgment no longer requires 
deliberation. It is this absence of deliberation which 
makes multitudes of judgments practically instan- 
taneous, or intuitive. No scientific man can make 
practical additions to knowledge who is not an 
inventor of hypotheses. One of the sine qua non 
conditions of successful research is the power of 
inventing hypotheses ; another of these sine qua non 
conditions is verification, but experimental verifica- 
tion also requires invention. 

That a primitive judgment requires much time is 
learned only by careful introspection. So many of 
our judgments are recognitional instead of being 
cognitional, that judgments usually appear to be 
instantaneous. In defense of this doctrine I may be 
permitted to cite my personal experience. For 
many years I was engaged on an exploring expedition 
where all the features of the landscape were new to 
me and my companions. Mountains, hills, rocks, 
plains, valleys, streams, all were new. I was con- 
stantly disco verng new plants, new animals, and 
strange human beings, as Indians. During all these 
years the fundamental doctrines of psychology often 
constituted the theme of my thoughts and the sub- 
ject with which I beguiled the weariness of travel. 
It was thus that I learned to distinguish the elements 
of a primordial judgment and to distinguish cogni- 
tional from recognitional judgments. In later years 
reconnoissance was developed into survey, and my 
time was devoted largely to structural geology. For 
every phenomenon there was always a hypothetical 
explanation, and such guesses were all found value- 



282 TRUTH AND ERROR 

less unless verified. Thus it was that the doctrine 
of a primary judgment and the doctrine of verifica- 
tion grew up with me. More than that, I discovered 
that my associates in the work of research depended 
upon hypothesis and verification ; and before my field 
work was done the universal doctrine of cognition 
herein presented was abundantly confirmed. 

Let us look further into the judgment relating to 
cause and effect in the external world. A judgment 
about an object may be combined with another 
judgment about another object, and a third judg- 
ment of causation arises, which is about things objec- 
tive. For example, I see a man strike another and 
cause pain in that other. I must make two judg- 
ments of perception to see the men, a judgment of 
understanding to see the force, a judgment of reflec- 
tion to see the effect, and perhaps another judgment 
of perception to realize the pain. While this maneu- 
ver is passing in the field many other events are 
occurring under the eye, the ear, and other senses, 
and the many judgments combine in the verification 
of the judgment formed of the maneuver. Thus 
judgments are verified. See what a number of 
concepts are aroused in this case and how much 
more complex it is than a simpler judgment of 
sensation, or even of perception. 

What we have to note here is the distinction which 
has to be made between a judgment of causation, 
which is a highly compound judgment, and the part 
which causation plays in all judgments — even the 
simplest. 

A judgment of causation is a very distinct thing 
from the property of causation in the formation of 
a judgment. In a judgment of sensation I reach a 



INTELLECTIONS 283 

conclusion about a property, say of taste, but I do 
not consider the cause as a cause but as a kind. So, 
in a judgment of perception I consider the cause as 
a form ; in a judgment of apprehension I consider the 
cause as a force ; but in the judgment of causation I 
consider the cause as a cause. Now, the very same 
phenomenon may be considered in any one of these 
lights, but the inference in the several cases will be 
different and the concepts aroused will be different. 
Which one of the judgments will be made will 
depend on my interest or the line of thought on 
which I am engaged. The reader can not be too 
careful in thoroughly mastering the distinctions 
between the five classes of judgment, and between 
the role of causation in making a judgment, and a 
judgment of causation. In the judgment of sensation 
I think about the kind ; in the judgment of perception 
I think about the form; in the judgment of appre- 
hension I think about the force ; but in the judgment 
of reflection I think about the causation as cause or 
effect. 

Let us now see how cognition is judgment and 
verification. What things are necessary that I may 
know that a body has touched me? First, I must 
be conscious of an effect on self; second, I must 
infer that something exercises a force that must 
have produced this change by collision, and the 
something is a cause and I have a judgment. This 
judgment may then be verified by my vision when 
I see the body. The change in self may have been 
produced by an irritation of the skin due to some 
disease. What I supposed to have been touch might 
have been an illusion, but seeing the body as it 
touched me the verification is made and a certitude 



284 TRUTH AND ERROR 

is produced. Again, I might have seen the body- 
approach and feared that it would touch me, and 
expectant of the touch, I might have inferred the 
touch when really the touch was not accomplished. 
In this case there was a consciousness by the 
sense impression in vision, but an inference which 
was only an illusion. Two or more acts of conscious- 
ness producing the same judgment verify one another. 

How must I know that a knife has cut me? First, 
I am conscious of a change or effect in self; second, 
I infer that something has produced that effect as a 
force and I have a judgment. In order that the 
cognition may be complete this hypothesis must be 
verified. I may verify the cutting by seeing that 
the gash is made, and I may verify the knife by see- 
ing or touching the knife. In the one case I have a 
certitude that I have been cut, and in the second 
case, a certitude that I have been cut with the knife, 
and these certitudes verify each other. I might 
have seen the knife move near to my hand and 
inferred that it cut me, and an illusion might thus 
have arisen that I was cut ; but the consciousness of 
the effect of the knife upon my hand, together with 
the consciousness of the knife by vision, produce 
judgments that confirm each other. 

How do I recognize that some one has spoken? 
First, I am conscious of a change in my organ of 
hearing. I infer that it is the sound of a voice. I see 
the person's lips move, and it is confirmed and I have 
a certitude. I might have seen the lips move without 
hearing the sound, and inferred that a sound was 
made, which would have been an illusion ; but in the 
hearing of the sound and the seeing of the move- 
ment of the lips, each verifies the other. 



INTELLECTIONS 285 

How do I cognize the flavor of an apple? My taste 
and my vision of the apple verify each other. How 
do I cognize the odor of a rose? By smelling and 
seeing, and the common judgment is verified. 

In these cases judgments verify one another. All 
verification is founded on congruence of judgments. 
It is thus that one sense verifies another. Now, 
that which we have specially to note at this stage of 
the argument is that verification is founded on con- 
gruence of judgments. Every cognition involves a 
judgment and its verification, and the verification 
is founded on the congruence of judgments, one with 
another of a higher grade. 

In the lower stages of the development of mind, 
verification is sometimes by repetition, oftener by 
submitting the judgment to verification by another 
sense ; but in the higher stages of the development 
of mind, verification is by experimentation. We 
go on from generation to generation with unverified 
judgments and suppose that our concepts are com- 
posed of cognitions, when in fact they are composed 
of fallacious judgments. For untold generations 
men believed the earth to be flat, and that 
bodies fall to the earth in a line normal to this flat 
plain. But there were certain phenomena which 
were inexplicable, and men invented the hypothesis 
that the earth is a spheroid and that bodies fall 
toward the center of the earth, and it accounted for 
so many facts relating to the motions of the heavenly 
bodies that the hypothesis led to a vast amount of 
scientific research, and was verified. Now at last 
we cognize the motion of the heavenly bodies in 
part at least. For ages man believed the heavenly 
bodies to be molar, that is, to be movable by man at 



286 TRUTH AND ERROR 

his will, moving from east to west along the face of a 
solid domed sky, and they supposed them to return 
from west to east under the ground, and it required 
ages to invent another hypothesis — that of a system 
of spheres revolving in orbits concentric to the sun. 
This hypothesis was an invention made by many 
men. It was a demotic, not an individual invention. 

The various judgments formed about an external 
object are combined into a concept of that object, 
and this concept is aroused from memory by infer- 
ence whenever a sense impression is received and 
attention is paid to it in judgment. One sense impres- 
sion becomes an agency for reviving many judg- 
ments previously made about the object causing the 
sense impression. It is thus that a sense impression 
becomes symbolic, and judgment in such cases is 
symbolic. The concomitant properties of an object 
severally manifest themselves to different senses, 
and when one property is manifested by one sense 
impression, it becomes the symbol of all other 
properties inhering in the object and known by the 
observer. Properties can not exist apart, as the 
constant multitudinous experiences of each indi- 
vidual attest. There is no one who can form a 
judgment who does not take it for granted that the 
concomitants, however unlike they may be, can not 
exist apart. Symbolism is not mere poetry that 
obscures reason, but it is a logical method of time- 
saving thought. Judgment itself is by symbolism, 
in which the manifestation of one property is inter- 
preted as a symbol of all the properties known about 
the object. 

A force is manifested as a force and it is also 
manifested as a cause, for there can not be a force 



INTELLECTIONS 287 

without it also being a cause, any more than there 
can be a force which is not a form, or a form which 
is not a kind. In nature forces are often observed 
in multitudes. There are many particles of air that 
stir the leaf and there are many leaves that are 
stirred by one wind, but in the particles of the wind 
one multitude follows another in succession. So 
there are many drops of rain that fall on many 
grains of soil, and a succession of a multitude of rain- 
drops constitute the rain. Process in its simplest 
form is the collision of two bodies that meet and 
act on each other in action and reaction, but this 
action and reaction is also cause and effect; thus 
causation and force are concomitant. But in appre- 
hension we consider only force; another intellectual 
faculty is engaged when we consider causation. 

When one body collides with another, different 
things may happen. First, both may be deflected; 
second, both may be deformed ; third, both may be 
broken; fourth, both may be heated; fifth, both 
may chemically be changed. Usually the total 
effect is two or more of these changes. Finally, any 
one of these effects may be experienced by one body 
and not by the other. Thus we see that although 
action and reaction are equal, cause and effect 
can not be equal, as they are not of the same kind. 

Judgments of reflection seem to be especially 
subject to error and as such to be compounded into 
false concepts and to be long entertained as such. 
In the act of making the judgment there must be 
judgments of bodies impinging on one another, lead- 
ing to judgments of apprehension. Then one of 
many effects must be considered as due to one of 
many causes, and the many effects referred to the 



288 TRUTH AND ERROR 

many causes in turn, in order that all of the effects 
may properly be distributed to all of the causes. 
Thus reflection is an exceedingly complex subject. 

The process is comparatively simple when one 
body collides with another, but when a multitude 
of bodies collide with one, the process is not so 
readily understood, and when a multitude of bodies 
collide against a multitude of bodies, as of winds 
against leaves, the process of disentangling causes 
and effects or antecedents and consequents, is still 
more involved. The difficulty may not appear at 
first glance, but an investigation into historical 
instances shows that frequently cause is mistaken 
for effect and effect for cause. It is not uncommon in 
savagery to attribute winds to trees. A common 
error of this kind is discovered in the minds of most 
persons, for it is widely believed that forests are the 
cause of rains. An interesting book has been 
written, widely read, and popularly approved, which 
is based on the assumption that the aridity of desert 
lands is due to the absence of forests. 

A stream of judgments flow through the mind. 
As the ego has self -activity it changes its position 
in the environment at will and a different environ- 
ment plays on the senses at every change in the 
position of the ego. Then by different senses the 
environment solicits the attention simultaneously by 
all. Thus attention is solicited by more sense 
impressions than it can attend to, and it chooses for 
attention those which serve a temporary or more 
sustained purpose. Those serving a temporary 
purpose give rise to what has been called by Kant, 
the practical reason ; those serving a sustained pur- 
pose, the pure reason. 



INTELLECTIONS 289 

Preservative judgments that originate in sense 
impressions, are often followed by representative 
judgments, and these are either discursive or voli- 
tional. Hence we see that the judgments which 
we make are exceedingly multitudinous and hetero- 
geneous. But all of these judgments are assembled 
in concepts by more temporary or more permanent 
purposes. What judgments can be made are deter- 
mined by the environment; but what judgments 
the mind selects to make are determined by the 
purpose. Thus the ego is the creature of environ- 
ment and self-activity. The stream of judgments 
is thought, and thought is controlled by self-activity 
and environment. 

It may be well to further consider the process of 
combining judgments by reflection. 

I am wandering by the river. Why should the 
river here suddenly pass from a narrow gorge to a 
wide-spread plain and be transformed from a narrow 
to an expansive stream? And why should the turbu- 
lent waters above become so quiet below? 

I climb a rock to study the problem. The bluffs 
standing back from the river, converge at this point 
and seem as if they would join hands across the chasm 
through which the river plunges. Here the bluff is 
a cliff and the edges of sandstone strata outcrop in 
the escarpment, and I observe with care the suc- 
cession of rocks from the bottom to the top of the 
cliff. But a robin flies down and perches on a 
willow near by, and in an instant cliff and geology 
vanish from my thought ; I see a turkis egg and a 
nest in the apple-tree of my garden, and my 
daughter is shouting a song of childish joy in my 
mind's ear, for this she did, not many weeks ago. 



290 TRUTH AND ERROR 

In thought I am at home once more. Then home 
vanishes and I see the robin again flitting from 
bough to bough, and as it moves my eyes follow it 
until it is in a line between myself and the cliff, and 
the sight of the cliff brings back my geologic 
problem. I see the red sandstone below, the brown 
shales between and the white sandstones above, and 
recognize the succession as being similar to one seen 
before. If so, the summit of the cliff must be 
crowned by a limestone. Yes, there is the limestone 
with its angular outlines, in contrast with the round 
reliefs of the sandstone. I am one step farther in 
my problem. I put the facts of the succession 
together and say this is a Carboniferous cliff. I 
know these rocks. 

In climbing I hear a noise. In an instant I inter- 
pret it as the voice of a friend, and turning about, 
find I am right. I hasten to announce my discovery, 
but he holds a flower aloft, waving it in triumph. 
That wand banishes the cliff with its succession of 
beds from my mind, and I see a bluebell drooping 
from its delicate stem and ringing a chime of 
cerulean beauty. In a twinkling of an eye my mind 
travels a thousand miles, and I am climbing the 
gray sandstone cliff which rises in the midst of the 
valley of Illinois river and is known as "Starved 
Rock." The miles my soul has traveled are only 
equaled by the time over which it has returned. I 
am a young man again, and I burst into a song: 

"It's rare to see the morning bleeze 
Like a bonfire frae the sea." 

Why do I sing that song? It was on my tongue 
when I found my first bluebell on "Starved Rock." 



INTELLECTIONS 291 

My friend bids me follow him. At one moment 
I am thinking of the cove, at another I am listening 
to the voice of my friend, and at still another I am 
watching the way over which we walk; and now 
and then my mind wanders away home and where 
not. Now my attention is attracted to a footprint 
in the sand. From its shape I know it was made 
by a deer. Thus I make an inference beyond my 
perception. The track is the sign of something 
else. I see other tracks; they are arranged along 
our course in pairs several feet apart. By this 
arrangement I infer that the deer was leaping, as if 
fleeing from danger, and I imagine that the deer 
has been startled at our approach. This is an 
erroneous inference, for my friend tells me that he 
roused the deer as he came down the path some 
time ago. And as we still walk I study the rocks, 
and discover that a limestone forms the floor of the 
valley below ; and then I discover by its contained 
fossils that it is the same formation as the one which 
crosses the summit of the cliff. The valley lime- 
stone was broken from the cliff limestone and 
dropped down by what geologists call a fault, and 
the fall or throw of the fault is more than a 
thousand feet. And now I discover the origin of 
the cascades in the canyon above and the broad and 
quiet flow of the river below. The last dropping of 
the sandstone by the fault decreased the declivity of 
the stream in the valley and increased the declivity 
of the stream above the valley, where it comes down 
through the canyon. All this is reasoning. It is a 
series of judgments controlled by will for a course 
of reasoning on a theme for which I have a per- 
manent interest, interrupted by a multitude of 



292 TRUTH AND ERROR 

adventitious judgments that are made by reason of 
temporary interest. 

We sit down by the spring and my friend spreads 
the lunch on a fallen tree trunk, and away goes my 
mind to the bank of the Grand river in central 
Colorado, and I see a prostrate pine, and an emerald 
lake near by, and on the shore, cliffs of granite, 
and beyond, a snow-clad mountain, and about its 
summit the gathered clouds, and the sheen of clouds 
and snow-fields blends with stretches of forest and 
crags and peaks of towering grandeur. Years ago 
I was there, and the feast on this log brings back the 
feast on that log, with its attendant glories of 
mountain scenery. From that scene I am called 
back by the bidding of my friend to eat. Then a 
bird comes down to the fountain, and I am engaged 
in watching its coy advances to the water. And so 
my mind passes instantaneously from one object to 
another — now engaged in observing things present, 
now listening to the voice of my friend, now occupied 
in expressing my thought to him, now calling up 
some scene from afar ; but ever thinking. On goes 
the stream of thought. 

I eat of the turnover, and observe from the taste 
that it is made of blackberries ; and then I think of 
the blackberry patches over which I strayed in child- 
hood on the hills of southern Ohio, and of my com- 
panion, Charles Isham, who was killed at the battle 
of Shiloh. And I talk of battles, till my friend speaks 
of bread and butter. Thirst causes me to go to the 
spring, and I quaff from its crystal fountain, and 
listen to the jests hurled at me by my friend, and 
laugh at his wit. Still on goes the stream of 
thought. 



INTELLECTIONS 293 

We have eaten the lunch and gathered the plants, 
and return home. On the way a sharp, buzzing 
sound thrills me with horror. I know it as the 
warning of a rattlesnake. It is a familiar sound to 
me, for I have found many of these serpents in the 
wilderness. I look about, and there it is, coiled in 
the grass. With my cane I strike it a blow, and then 
another, until it stretches its length on the ground, 
dead. From the inanimate reptile I pluck the rattles. 
There are nine on its tail, which it was wont to ring 
when danger approached — discordant bells whose 
ringing is a symbol to the woodsman that reptilian 
hell is lurking near the pathway. 

We have reached the river bank, and separate ; I 
climb about it in search of fossils. Soon I discover 
carboniferous fossils in the rock at the foot of the 
cliff, and climbing up beside the stream I discover 
limestone rocks which have come down from the 
summit of the cliff, and see the same fossils. My 
explanation of the origin of the cliff, the rapid 
descent of the river fronuabove, the narrow channel 
through which it runs, the valley below, and the 
broad expanse of quiet water, is verified. Now, in 
my reasoning about the fall of a river into a quiet 
reach, I used concepts of form in the nature of the 
channel, and concepts of form in the structure of 
the rocks. I also used concepts of time in the 
succession of the rocks, and I reached a conclusion 
or judgment as to the cause of the rapid which was 
a judgment of causation, and I confirmed this judg- 
ment by reaching the same conclusion from the 
story of the fossils that I had reached from the story 
of the geological structure ; so concepts verify con- 
cepts. On careful examination it will always be 



294 TRUTH AND ERROR 

found that judgments of causation are verified by 
the congruence of concepts. 

The stream of thought is composed of a series of 
widely diverse elements, or mentations, that are 
judgments, all differing among themselves. Now, 
it is impossible for the mind to dwell on any one of 
these elements. You cannot think of a scratch long ; 
the mind immediately passes to something else — 
another sight or sound. Consciousness, which is 
awareness of a change in self, is the absolute, the 
independent of thought and that on which inferences 
are founded; and consciousness is awareness of a 
succession of impulses on self or by self, that flow 
with the rapidity of thought that seems almost to 
vie with the rapidity of air collisions in sound. 
Hence consciousness is serial, and inferences are 
serial, and judgments are necessarily serial; but 
thought must go on. Gaze into the eye of my lady 
and think of its sapphirine hue ; in a moment you 
think of something else — the sable curtain, the coy 
glance, perchance the cerulean heaven, or the deep 
blue sea. It is impossible to hold your mind for 
more than a moment on the blueness of the eye; 
the thought must go on. But on to what? is the 
question. Tell me in the case of any individual the 
laws which govern the procession of his thought, 
and I will tell his name, be it sage or fool. There 
is alwa)^s a nexus between contiguous elements in 
the stream of thought. Sometimes it is mere 
adventitious association. The thing seen or heard 
has at some previous time been associated with 
something else. The touch is associated with the 
mother's stroke on childish curls; the taste of that 
particular fruit is associated with an occasion of 



INTELLECTIONS 295 

joy; the perfume of smoke is associated with the 
burning forest; the song- is associated with some 
scene of glee; the robin is associated with the 
cottage home. But the nexus of association is not 
always adventitious. It is often controlled by an 
established design. With the fool, adventitious 
relation is the principal nexus of thought in the pro- 
cession; with the sage, logical relation is the chief 
nexus. 

The links of relation in the chain of thought are 
not always apparent to the thinker himself. Steps 
in the procession of reasoning are often canceled; 
the mind passes, by great bounds, from one to 
another. When the steps in the course of logical 
reasoning have been taken many times, the mind 
finds it unnecessary to tread the ground again and 
again, with slow and measured pace, but it springs 
from point to point, and the greater reasoners make 
the greater leaps. This is a fact well known to 
scientific men, but it gives to the procession of 
mentations those characteristics which cause the 
greatest wonder to men, and which have led to 
many of the errors of psychology. 

By reflecting on the past and comparing it with 
the present, we prophesy of the future and often 
our prophecies are confirmed. By day we prophesy 
of the night, and the night comes; at night we 
prophesy of the morning, and the morning comes. 
As the days, weeks, months, and years go by we 
learn by experience of the changes wrought in self 
and infer changes yet to be wrought. By experience 
we discover the changes wrought in others, and by 
inference judgments are formed of changes yet to 
be wrought. It is by experience that we learn of 



296 TRUTH AND ERROR 

all the changes in environment. The skies change ; 
the seasons change ; the river was low yesterday, it 
is a raging torrent today. The acorn bourgeons 
with leaflets, it sends rootlets into the earth and 
stem and branch into the air; it grows from week 
to week, month to month, year to year, and under 
our experience it becomes a tree. The child is 
born, it grows to be a lad, a youth, a young man, a 
vigorous adult, an old man, and the judgments 
formed are compounded into ideas of becoming. It 
is thus by reflection that a vast multitude of judg- 
ments are compounded into ideas of the changes 
wrought by time, and reflection becomes the special 
process of cognizing metagenesis. As on the wings 
of perception all lands are viewed, so on wings of 
reflection all times are conned. The illimitable 
past and the illimitable future are all painted on 
the canvas of now by the artist of reflection. 
Things that have been and things to be are 
emblazoned on the panorama of reflectional concept. 

Thus we have ideas of sensation or classification, 
ideas of perception or integration, ideas of under- 
standing or cooperation, and ideas of reflection or 
history, all derived from the germs of sense impres- 
sion as they have been made on the mind of the 
individual in moments, hours, days, and years. 

A boulder cannot move from the bank into the 
swift channel in order that it may journey down the 
stream, but a man may travel from the distant hill 
to voyage on the river. The leaf cannot flutter in 
the air unless the air is sweeping by, and the air 
cannot move as a breeze without antecedent con- 
ditions of temperature. Every action is self-action 
and every passion is self -passion, but the action of 



INTELLECTIONS 297 

one must have its correlate in the action of another, 
and the passion of one must have its correlate in 
the passion of another. In this respect animate 
bodies have a property which separates them from 
inanimate bodies, in that they perform actions 
which are self-directed, and in that they have 
passions that are self-chosen. The animal may 
choose to enter the current or it may choose to 
expose itself to the wind, and it may act for these 
purposes by placing itself under the proper condi- 
tions. Heretofore we have attempted to use the 
term activity in this sense as a chosen act. By such 
activities design or purpose is expressed. I see a 
bird fly from tree to tree and think of it as an 
activity prompted by design. I see a leaf blown 
from one tree to another and I see an act not 
determined by choice. All this is intended to make 
clear the distinction between activities and acts and 
to show that activities are manifestations of mind. 
The animate body is conscious of mind, and through 
the manifestations of mind with others it is led to 
infer that they also have minds. 

In the history of metaphysical philosophy the 
doctrine of presentative and representative judg- 
ments has undergone some strange vicissitudes. 
The distinction seems first to have been formulated 
by the terms impressions and thoughts, presentative 
judgments being called impressions and representa- 
tive judgments thoughts. Spencer refers to the 
same distinction when he speaks of vivid impres- 
sions and faint impressions. Others have considered 
presentative judgments as instinctive or intuitive, 
for such judgments are often made instantaneously 
and without apparent consciousness of previous 



298 TRUTH AND ERROR 

judgments. The nature of intuition we have 
already set forth. Kant also believes that repre- 
sentative judgments are controlled by forms of 
thought preexisting in the mind and not derived 
from experience, in which all judgments are molded. 
He supposes the mind to be endowed with the 
knowledge of space as empty space and of time as 
empty time, and that the ego fills the empty space and 
empty time with forms of thought. Thus the meta- 
physicians have always failed to discover the nature 
of a judgment with its pentalogic elements, in which 
both consciousness and choice appear with compari- 
son, which completes the judgment. They also fail 
to discover that a presentative judgment is only 
initiated by a sense impression, and that the ego must 
still recall past impressions in a concept to make 
the judgment complete, and they also fail to discover 
that the representative judgment is initiated by 
recalling a past concept and comparing it with 
another concept of past judgments. 

I see a worm crawling on the ground ; the worm 
causes a sense impression. I might stop to consider 
its color and have a judgment of sensation, or I 
might consider its form and have a judgment of 
perception, or I might consider its motion and have 
a judgment of understanding, or I might consider 
its cause as an egg and have a judgment of reflec- 
tion, or I might consider that the motion itself is 
directed molar motion and hence manifests mind in 
the worm ; then I would have a judgment of idea- 
tion. Any one of these judgments can be made from 
the same sense impression, and my interest, my pur- 
pose, my choice determines the nature of the judg- 
ment made. But when made it needs verification. 



INTELLECTIONS 299 

If the judgment as a sensation is valid and there is a 
color, if the judgment of perception is valid and 
there is a form, if the judgment of understanding 
is valid and there is a motion, if the judgment of 
causation is valid and there is an object developed 
from an egg, then there is left for consideration the 
validity of the ' judgment of ideation, for the worm 
may not be moving by its own volition but it may 
be dragged by an ant. Its motion must be due to 
an animate and designing cause, which may inhere 
in the worm itself or in another which is unknown 
to me, for it is molar motion caused by mind, and in 
order that I may verify my judgment of mind in the 
worm I must determine that it is living and free 
to use its own judgment; such verification comes 
only by the comparison of concepts. As ideation 
is the compounding of concepts, so verification in 
ideation is the comparison of concepts. 

In sensation, perception, understanding, and 
reflection, concepts are developed by the consolida- 
tion of judgments. In ideation we have a faculty 
by which judgments are added to judgments to con- 
stitute concepts and which then continues its power 
of forming judgments by combining concepts with 
concepts and forever forming new concepts thereby, 
while at the same time the power thus developed 
of comparing concepts with concepts is leading to a 
re-formation of the concepts themselves by the 
elimination of fallacies, for when concepts by com- 
parison with concepts are found to be incongruous, 
the mind refuses to accept them as valid and seeks 
for the source of error. We must, therefore, dis- 
cover the means by which concepts are compared 
with concepts. 



300 TRUTH AND ERROR 

We must now shoulder the task of explaining the 
laws of symbolism or association, which have been 
assumed from time to time and partially explained 
in this discussion. 

It has been shown how concepts are formed as 
groups of judgments in sensation, perception, 
apprehension, and reflection, and how ideas develop 
simultaneously. We are now to show how they are 
compounded with one another, and how in this 
process incongruous ideas are adjusted by the 
elimination of judgments that are fallacies, for judg- 
ments must ultimately die if they do not fit in their 
proper places. 

That which I have sometimes called symbolism 
and that which I have sometimes called association 
are the same thing. When a sensation which is 
the result of a sense impression caused by one 
attribute of a body, is taken as a symbol of the body 
itself with all its attributes, it becomes a symbol of 
all with which it is associated. When a sense 
impression gives rise to a judgment of force it recalls 
many other judgments of force and thus becomes a 
symbol of other things. When a judgment of cause 
is formed it also becomes a symbol of other causes. 
Sense impressions are directly used by the mind in 
this manner in sensation, perception, apprehension, 
reflection, and ideation, and it is thus that ideas 
are primarily associated. The memories of judg- 
ments are recalled by other judgments, as we have 
seen, so that not only do judgments which arise 
from sensations recall other judgments, but these 
other judgments recall still other judgments, and 
thus there is recollection in the second degree ; and 
these revivals may go on from degree to degree to 



INTELLECTIONS 301 

an indefinite extent. All of these facts have been 
illustrated. 

As we judge by comparing concepts with other 
concepts or with impressions, one judgment by a 
faculty is associated with other judgments by the 
same faculty, and as one property is concomitant with 
all the others, one property becomes a symbol of 
all the others, so that there is association by com- 
parison of concepts and association by symbolism. 
Hence all our judgments are associated. 

The quantitative properties are the reciprocals of 
the categoric properties, for the one is the reciprocal 
of the many which compose the one. The one is a 
kind, and the many is another kind, and the one kind 
is the reciprocal of the many kinds. So the one 
form of the body is the reciprocal of the many 
extensions of the particles. The one motion of the 
body is the reciprocal of the many motions of the 
particles, hence the one force of the body is the 
reciprocal of the many motions of the particles, for 
the force of the body is the reciprocal of the motion 
of the particles. The one time of the body is the 
reciprocal of the many times of a particle, hence the 
one causation of the body is the reciprocal of the 
many times of the particles. The one judgment of 
the body is the reciprocal of the many judgments 
of the particles, hence the one concept of the body 
is the reciprocal of the many judgments of the 
particles. 

Judgments of quantitative bodies are reciprocal 
judgments of classific bodies, hence they are 
associated by reciprocality. Judgments of one 
property are concomitant with judgments of another 
property, therefore they are associated by con- 



302 TRUTH AND ERROR 

comitancy. Now judgments associated by concomi- 
tancy are often intuitive in the sense in which that 
term is used here ; so judgments associated by 
reciprocality are often intuitive. But there are 
many judgments that are associated not by con- 
comitancy or reciprocality, because they are chosen 
when we make judgments ; of those chosen some are 
volitional, some discursive. The discursive associa- 
tions are those usually recognized as such, and again 
we have association by kind or likeness, by form, by 
force, by causation, and by concept. Thus it is that 
the ego remembers by pentalogic properties. Thus 
association is the law of memory. 

Units are associated with units, numbers with 
numbers, kinds with kinds, series with series, classes 
with classes, and all are associated in nature and 
considered in classification. Then extensions are 
associated with extensions, spaces with spaces, 
forms with forms, metamorphoses with meta- 
morphoses, organisms with organisms, and all these 
are interassociated and these associations are con- 
sidered in morphology. Then speeds are associated 
with speeds, motions with motions, forces with 
forces, energies with energies, powers with powers, 
cooperations with cooperations, and all of these 
modes of motion are interrelated or associated and 
all are considered in dynamics. Again persistencies 
are associated with persistencies, times with times, 
causations with causations, metageneses with meta- 
geneses, developments with developments, and they 
are all interrelated and considered in evolution. 
Finally, sensations are associated with sensations, 
perceptions with perceptions, apprehensions with 
apprehensions, reflections with reflections, and idea- 






INTELLECTIONS 303 

tions with ideations, and all are considered in intel- 
lection and are represented by words. Then numbers, 
spaces, motions, times, and judgments are associated, 
and kinds, forms, forces, causations, and concepts 
are associated, and the quantitative properties are 
associated with the categoric properties. There is 
a congeries of associations in which all of the con- 
tents of the mind are associated as fast as we cognize 
the bodies of the universe in their properties and 
relations. 

Certain special associations of discursive thought 
have received special attention and various attempts 
have been made to account for them, while the 
multitudinous associations of thought have been 
neglected. This partial discussion of the subject 
has led to the classification of the associations of 
memory and two laws have been formulated: 
the one called the law of likeness, and the other 
the law of contiguity. They have also been 
formulated as three or more; but the essential 
nature of association has failed to receive 
attention because the five associated properties 
of matter have not clearly been understood; all 
of these methods, about which scarcely two psycholo- 
gists agree, have been inadequate to properly set 
forth the subject. Especially do we notice that 
contiguity in space has been confounded with im- 
mediate succession in time by the habit of using a 
word with two meanings, and thus confounding 
succession with position. Particularly intensive 
associations by which striking events are recalled, 
because of the deep effects made on the mind, have 
been observed by thoughtful men for more than 
twenty centuries. In moods of contemplation a 



304 TRUTH AND ERROR 

judgment recalls some remote judgment which was 
startling at the time, and as we go on from moment 
to moment, recalling a multitude of things by a 
multitude of associations, this special instance is 
thrust on the mind and we stop to consider it. I 
see a rock which more or less resembles another 
which I once saw and now recall, together 
with an event which at that time made an 
impression on my mind; a man fell over the 
cliff. I smell the odor of burning brush in the way- 
side field and T suddenly recall the odor of the fire 
which I kindled for burning brush-piles on my 
father's farm. I taste the flavor of a nut and I recall 
the time when I threw to my shouting companions 
the walnuts from a wayside tree. Such startling 
revivals; often repeated, challenge attention, and 
though thoughtful men have given much attention 
to the phenomena, it has resulted in a very imperfect 
psychology of association and symbolism. 

Once more the attention of the reader is called to 
the relations which exist between the five essentials 
and which are then found in the five properties, 
then found in the five categories, then found in the 
five properties of change, then in the five properties 
of life, then in the five properties of mind. Kinds 
are not alone classified, but forms, forces, qualities, 
and concepts are classified. Morphology considers 
not only forms, but it also considers kinds, forces, 
causes, and concepts. Dynamics considers not only 
forces, but it also considers kind, forms, causes, and 
concepts. Evolution considers not only causes, but 
it considers kinds, forms, forces, and concepts; and 
ideation considers not only concepts, but it also 
considers kinds, forms, forces, and causes, and the 



INTELLECTIONS 305 

difference between these five concomitants is the 
point of view when every one of the essentials and 
its derivatives is considered abstractly. As they 
cannot exist abstractly, the mind cannot overtly con- 
sider an abstraction without tacitly informing it 
with concrete existence. 

The error of metaphysic is the confounding of 
abstraction with analysis by assuming that abstrac- 
tions have separate existence. If the argument has 
not made this point clear it has failed of its purpose. 
The habits of thought engendered by the study of 
abstract mathematics often leads the mathematician 
into the very same pitfalls into which the meta- 
physician stumbles. 

The manifestations of properties are symbols, 
because one becomes the representative of all the 
others in the body manifested. When animate beings 
develop the faculty of reading these symbols, they 
are said to be able to read the expression of the 
emotions and are themselves expert in the expres- 
sion of emotions. Gradually these expressions 
become more and more artificial as animals advance 
in culture, until at last a conventional language is 
devised. This is speech, which is practiced by the 
lower animals, but which is much more highly 
developed in man. Natural symbolism thus becomes 
conventional symbolism, and words are signs of con- 
cepts. A wholly conventional symbolism is thus 
devised, the symbols being symbols of concepts. 
Now, men practically and overtly consider their 
concepts and a language is a vast reservoir of con- 
ventional symbols used for this purpose. There is 
no human language so crude thaf it does not have 
tens of thousands of such symbols, which, put together 



306 TRUTH AND ERROR 

in propositions or sentences, have the power of 
expressing all the judgments which the people who 
use the language are able to make. We now see 
the enormous development of ideation which man 
has accomplished by the invention of language. 

A judgment is expressed in a proposition by con- 
ventional language. Unfortunately, in grammar, 
subject and object have a different meaning from 
that which they have in psychology. In grammar 
the subject means that something about which an 
affirmation is made, and the predicate means that 
which is affirmed of the subject, while object has 
various meanings in grammar. Until the terms of 
grammar are made to conform with the terms of 
psychology, there must always be some confusion. 
Formal logic is the logic of grammar, and the pur- 
pose for which it was devised was success in dis- 
putation. Scientific logic is the logic of kinds, and 
it is of scientific logic that we speak in this essay. 
The logic of which we speak is the logic of reason- 
ing, not the logic of grammar. 

The methods of comparing judgments and con- 
cepts are innumerable, and every judgment is an act 
of comparison, and we are forever judging for the 
purposes of discovering congruities ; an incongruous 
judgment acts upon a healthy mind as a moral 
irritant. If this and this judgment do not agree, it 
is an evidence of ignorance and a suggestion of 
imbecility. There is no other motive that clings to 
man so long as the desire for wisdom. 



CHAPTER XX 

FALLACIES OF SENSATION 

The certitudes which we have tried to demonstrate 
have given rise to a host of fallacies which have 
played a strange role in the history of opinions and 
which from time to time have vitiated science itself. 
Civilization began with science when it commenced 
with verification by experimentation. Verification 
soon led to the dissipation of fallacies ; then it was 
discovered that things are something more than 
what they seem to be to our simplest judgments. 
Kinds are something more than kinds, they are 
forms; forms are something more than forms, they 
are forces ; forces are something more than forces, 
they are causations ; in animate bodies causations are 
something more than causations, they are concepts. 
When we know all about a body we must know all 
of its properties and these can only be discovered 
by investigation, and science is the result of this 
investigation ; but before we acquire knowledge we 
entertain fallacies. The early philosophers, discover- 
ing that partial knowledge is inadequate to the 
expression of the whole truth, thought to characterize 
the whole truth by calling it noumenon, and they 
thought to characterize partial truth by calling it 
phenomenon. This was a wise and legitimate dis- 
tinction, but the time came when certain delusions 
were held to be sacred and a belief in them necessary 
to a good life ; so they thought by the legerdemain of 
language to prove that delusions were the noumena 

307 



308 TRUTH AND ERROR 

and all knowledge only phenomena. But scientific 
men took up the phenomena or unexplained proper- 
ties of bodies and by investigation increased knowl- 
edge as science, and reduced phenomena or partially 
explained properties to noumena or more fully 
explained properties. To a great extent they 
dropped the term noumenon and held to the term 
phenomenon, and expressed the opinion tacitly or 
overtly that a phenomenon is but still a phenomenon 
whether it be properly or improperly explained, and 
they held it their province to explain phenomena and 
they called the explanation of phenomena, science. 
In modern times those who hold that noumena are 
inexplicable, that is, unknown and unknowable 
properties, call themselves metaphysicians. Those 
who hold that phenomena are knowable and seek by 
investigation to know them, call themselves scientists. 
Such schematizing of philosophers as metaphysicians 
and scientists is necessarily imperfect, for some 
philosophers are both metaphysicians and scientists. 
There are many who are metaphysicians when they 
wear their holiday dress, and scientists when they 
wear the garb of labor. Metaphysical reasoning can 
be more clearly demarcated from scientific reasoning, 
for scientific reasoning may always be known by its 
demand for verification. We may make a mistake 
in sensation because of its obscurity or by referring 
it to a wrong sense. The sense impression may be 
obscure itself, as when a sound barely passes the 
threshold of consciousness, or a sight which is 
obscure by reason of the twilight, or it may be 
obscure by reason of preoccupied attention; thus I 
may fail to attend to a sound or a sight because my 
attention is elsewhere engaged. I do not hear the 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 309 

speaker because I am attending to a sight, or I do 
not see a sight because I am listening to what another 
person is saying. All of such missensations are 
easily corrected by ordinary methods of verification, 
but often we neglect them, as we deem them of no 
importance. I shall call all such errors of judgment, 
missensations, and group them in a higher class 
which I shall call illusions. 

When a youth, as I was breaking prairie with an 
ox team, my labor was interrupted by a rattlesnake, 
and during the day I saw and killed several of these 
serpents. At one time the lash of my whip flew 
off. In trying to pick it up I grasped a stick. The 
fear of being bitten by a snake and the degree of 
expectant attention to which I was wrought, caused 
me to interpret the sense impression of touch as 
caused by a rattlesnake. This was a missensation of 
touch. At the same time I distinctly heard the rattle 
of the snake ; this was a missensation of audition. 

I make a distinction between a sense impression 
and a feeling impression. A sense impression is 
one made upon the end organ of a sense by an 
object exterior to the body; a feeling impression 
is one made upon an organ of feeling which is 
metabolic, circulatory, motor, reproductive, or 
cognitional. A feeling impression arises as a 
result of the functioning of the organ and is usually 
distinguished as being subjective. The mind may 
err in considering a subjective impression as objec- 
tive, when an hallucination will be produced. We 
thus divide fallacies of sensation into two groups, 
missensations and hallucinations. Missensations are 
easily corrected ; hallucinations cannot be corrected 
while the person who makes them is in the condition 



3IO TRUTH AND ERROR 

of mind under which they originate, for they are 
produced under abnormal conditions and so long as 
these conditions prevail similar hallucinations will 
occur, for hallucinations occur in the dream state, 
the intoxication state, the disease state, or other 
abnormal states. We will see the significance of this 
statement when we proceed to discuss hallucinations. 
Missensations are at first preservative and they 
remain only until corrected by verification ; hallucina- 
tions are false presentations and cannot be tested 
by the verification of the persons who make them. 
To the mind that forms the habit of believing in 
hallucinations they come to the persons as recog- 
nitions and have the instantaneous effect of recog- 
nitions. 

Here we must distinguish clearly between a fallacy 
of sensation and a fallacy of feeling. A soldier in 
the suspense which precedes the battle, when sharp- 
shooters are now and then picking off a man, may 
have his gun or his clothing touched by a rifle ball 
and in the suspense of the occasion may imagine 
that he has received a severe, perhaps a deadly 
wound, and may shriek with pain. The fallacy of 
being struck is a fallacy of sensation, but the 
fallacy of having pain is a fallacy of feeling. 
Similar cases are often witnessed on the frontier, 
where men experience an adventurous life. Now, 
we are not treating of fallacies of feeling, but of those 
of sensation. An hallucination is the antithesis of 
the one I have just given; it is the error which 
arises by interpreting a feeling impression as if it 
were a sense impression; but a fallacy of feeling 
consists of interpreting a sense impression as a feel- 
ing impression. 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 311 

In a former chapter it was explained that a judg- 
ment of intellection is a judgment of the cause of a 
sense impression, and that a judgment of emotion is 
a judgment of the effect of an impression. The 
feelings, therefore, tell of effects upon self, and the 
senses tell of the causes of these effects. This dis- 
tinction is important to a clear understanding of the 
nature of fallacies. 

Parish has assembled a great body of ' ' Hallucina- 
tions and Illusions," which are in convenient form 
for reference. As his treatment of the subject is 
better than any I have elsewhere seen, I shall liberally 
avail myself of the material which he has gathered. 
Notwithstanding Parish's disclaimer, he still exhibits 
a tendency to explain psychological phenomena by 
a reference to its physiological concomitant. As 
there can be no psychology without its concomitant 
physiology, this is quite legitimate, but the practical 
conclusions at which he arrives still require explica- 
tion in terms of abstract mind. He uses a geomet- 
rical scheme for the purpose of setting forth the 
facts of physiology. Such a scheme may have an 
expositional value to make us realize the facts which 
have been discovered in the anatomy of the nervous 
system, but it is easily abused. We know that the 
nervous system is composed of ganglia of cells, con- 
nected by nerves composed of bundles of fibers, 
and that the ganglia are found in hierarchies 
connected by these nerve fibers, which finally 
terminate in the organs of life, where they are 
distributed throughout the system, and also at 
the periphery, where they terminate in end organs 
supplied with various mechanical devices. The 
nerve fibers that connect with a ganglion are not 



312 TRUTH AND ERROR 

structurally continuous with the cells of the ganglion, 
so that a sense impression or a feeling impression is 
conveyed from one ganglion to another by fibers 
which are discontinuous at the ganglion. This 
permits of a shunting or diversion of an impulse in 
many directions through the nervous system, a 
ganglion being a shunting or diverting mechanism. 
The paths of which Parish, together with many 
other authors, speaks, are the fibers and cells. Now, 
I submit that a simple statement of the fact is much 
more readily comprehensible than any geometric 
scheme which any physiologist has devised. The 
concept of a nervous system composed of sensory and 
vital organs connected by nervous fibers with nervous 
cells for a shunting apparatus, is one easily realized 
by the mind. It must be remembered that this 
discovery was not available until of late. When we 
come to explain the physiology of the nervous 
system we must explain also the anatomy of the 
nervous system, and finally this leads us to an 
explanation of the metabolism of the nervous sys- 
tem. Hence conception has its concomitants in 
physiology, anatomy, and metabolism, and as the 
physiology of the nerves is a process which also 
involves time in its evolution, we may characterize 
conception in terms of evolution, physiology, 
anatomy, or metabolism, but a psychologic treatment 
of the subject requires that the conception should 
ultimately be treated in terms of psychology. I 
shall, therefore, treat all fallacies in terms of 
psychology. I shall assume that both sense impres- 
sions and feeling impressions may go astray in 
passing from the end organ to the cortex, because 
the fibrous nerves are not structurally connected 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 313 

with the ganglionic nerves, so that, under certain 
conditions, they may be directed to any portion of 
the cortex by the will acting normally or abnormally. 

Every cell in the human body is a seat of con- 
sciousness, while the nervous system is the organ of 
inference. All the bodily organs are related to one 
another through the structure of the nervous system, 
the fibers of which permeate all the organs, 
collect sense and feeling impressions from them, 
and transmit them by fibrous nerves to the ganglionic 
nerves, where such impressions are woven into con- 
cepts to be ultimately returned to the motor 
apparatus. In this conception I suppose that an 
hallucination involves not only the central organ in 
the cortex, but it also may involve a subordinate 
ganglion or an organ of sense or feeling. 

We have divided fallacies of sensation into missen- 
sations and hallucinations. The exposition already 
made relating to missensations will, perhaps, be 
sufficient for practical purposes, but hallucinations 
will require further consideration. 

In discussing hallucinations there are no sense 
impressions to be considered, but there are feeling 
impressions which are interpreted as if they were 
sense impressions. The interpretation seems always 
to be made by the faculty of perception. We have, 
therefore, to discuss hallucinations as false percep- 
tion based on feeling impressions ; consequently, in 
order to consider their cause in feeling impressions, 
we shall illustrate by instances of fallacious percep- 
tions which are specters. 

Esquirol distinguishes hallucinations from illusions 
by considering hallucinations as "subjective sensory 
images" which arise without the aid of external 



314 TRUTH AND ERROR 

stimuli, and illusions as the false interpretation of 
external objects, but lie does not clearly distinguish 
between sensation and perception, which we have 
attempted to make clear. In the same manner 
Parish has fallen into confusion; Sully makes the 
distinction but he classifies illusions in a manner 
which we cannot follow. I shall therefore treat 
the subject as demanded by the standpoint obtained 
in considering the five-fold faculties of the intellect 
as hitherto set forth. 

In sensation we hear sounds that are caused by 
objective bodies; thus a bell agitates the air and 
we hear it, but we may have a disturbance of the 
physiological function of the ear, due it may be to 
the influence of a drug or perhaps to a disease of 
the organ. Now, such a subjective impression or 
functioning of an organ of sense we call a feeling 
impression, and when we consider it to be objective 
we hallucinate or have an hallucination. 

In a highly nervous state men mistake the motor 
feeling of speech for the sound of speech, as if 
caused by another or objective person. A subjec- 
tive irritation of the skin may be mistaken for the 
objective crawling of an insect over the skin. A 
polypus in the nose may produce a disturbance in 
the function of the nose which is interpreted as an 
odor. A man may smell paradisic odors or mephitic 
stenches by reason of disease in the olfactory organ. 
In the same manner diseases produce hallucinations 
of the gustatory sense. 

The literature of hallucination in large part is the 
literature of pathology, although the occurrence of 
hallucinations has often been recorded in biographic 
literature, in which there are many notable examples. 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 315 

Socrates had hallucinations of a demon who fre- 
quently warned him of impending evil. Savonarola 
saw the heavens open and a sword appear on which 
was the inscription Gladius Domini super terrain. 
Luther had an auditory hallucination when on the 
stairs at Rome he heard the words, "The just shall 
live by faith. " Cromwell had his greatness foretold 
him by an apparition. At first it may be difficult to 
state whether such fallacies are hallucinations proper 
or only missensations. As we go on with the subject, 
however, we may find reason to believe them genuine 
hallucinations. 

When a patient with peritonitis declares that a 
church congress is being held inside of her and says 
that she can feel it in the abdomen, no one knows 
what a congress in such a locality would feel like, 
but the patient mistakes it for a sense impression 
and hence it is an hallucination. Should the patient 
imagine that she hears the speeches of the contend- 
ing parties in the congress, then of course there 
would be an auditory hallucination. 

A so-called census of hallucinations has been made 
at the instigation of the Society for Psychical Research 
which is really a list and description of hallucinations 
which have occurred in recent times to such people as 
the promoters of the enterprise could induce to tell of 
them. It is probable that there is no person who 
has not frequently experienced them. Many of 
these are now on record, constituting quite a body 
of hallucinations. The purpose for which these 
records were made seems to have been the desire 
to prove that hallucinations are often veridical and 
hence give evidence of some unknown or hitherto 
unrecognized method of communicating ideas, except 



316 TRUTH AND ERROR 

in folklore, when such communications are attrib- 
uted to the interference of disembodied spirits in the 
affairs of mankind or an extra sense called telepathy 
by an organ not yet discovered. Those who believe 
in ghostly manifestations will find abundant evi- 
dence of them here, while those who believe in 
telepathy will gain confirmation of their doctrines. 
In the meantime those who still hold them to be 
hallucinations or specters will explain them as 
psychologic errors. 

Parish in his work on Hallucinations and 
Illusions considers those of the S. P. R. catalogue 
with others which have been recorded \>y medical 
experts or derived from general literature. He 
endeavors to show that all hallucinations and illu- 
sions are phenomena of dissociation. Dissociation is 
manifestly abnormal association, and association is 
about synonymous with conception as we have used 
the terms. 

When awake we may have hallucinations when- 
ever our nerves are unduly excited or when we are 
in any abnormal condition, as from fatigue. 

Hallucinations are a constant phenomenon of ecstasy, where 
they arise out of one-sided mental activity and intense con- 
centration on single groups of ideas, conjoined with lowered 
sensibility. The best known cases are those of religious 
ecstasy, but religious ideas do not invariably furnish the 
material for "ecstatic vision." Philosophers, artists, and 
others whose habit of mind tends to deepen certain channels 
of thought, are also liable to such visitations. Any and every 
object of longing or desire, no matter how trivial, grotesque, 
or perverse, may become the object of ecstasy. — (P. 38.) 

Emanuel Swedenborg was privileged to behold God himself. 
Engelbrecht relates how he was carried by the Holy Spirit 
through space to the gates of hell, and then borne in a golden 
chariot up into heaven, where he saw choirs of saints and 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 317 

angels singing round the throne, and received a message from 
God, delivered to him by an angel. — (P. 39.) 

The multitudinous hallucinations recorded in his- 
tory, like that of the demon of Socrates and those 
referred to in the former part of this chapter, are 
probably all hallucinations of ecstasy. Hallucina- 
tions are fundamentally classed by the sense 
deceived. Thus we have gustatory, tactual, motor, 
auditory, and visual hallucinations. Of gustatory 
and olfactory hallucinations, Parish says : 

Where hallucinations of taste have been noted they are 
mostly nauseous or poisonous (arsenic, copper, filth), and 
frequently give rise to refusal of nourishment, or it may be 
to continued spitting. In the early stages of paralysis, on the 
other hand, gustatory hallucinations of an agreeable nature 
are sometimes reported, the patient perhaps describing the 
enjoyment of all the various dishes of an imaginary menu. 
Olfactory hallucinations are, on the whole, infrequent, and are 
seldom of an agreeable character. The experiences of the 
patient who declared he smelt all the perfumes of Arabia and 
the East are exceptional, for hallucinations of this sense are, 
generally speaking, associated with delusions about bodily 
foulness, and odors of corruption and corpses, due to visceral 
disturbances. Lelut reports the case of an insane woman who 
declared that the pestilential odors she perceived arose from 
corpses buried in certain vaults under the Salpetriere. Some- 
times, haunted by the fear of being murdered, the sufferer 
perceives everywhere the fumes of charcoal, noxious gases, 
and particles of poisonous dust. Olfactory hallucinations sel- 
dom appear alone, but are generally associated with other 
sensory fallacies. Some authors consider that they belong 
more to the early stages of insanity. They are frequently 
found in association with local disease of the ovaries, and of 
the reproductive organs in general. — (Pp. 28, 29.) 

Fallacies of touch seem usually to be represented 
by hallucination of external bodies crawling on the 



318 TRUTH AND ERROR 

skin when in fact no such bodies exist. Hallucina- 
tions of insects, mice, and snakes are frequent. 

There is not much to note concerning hallucinations of the 
tactile sense. . . . 

It is only when a darkened intelligence "seizes upon them as 
a basis for a new conception of the ego and the environment," 
that they become of primary significance. But such signifi- 
cance may always be attributed to an hallucination of either of 
the higher senses, though opinion is divided as to which of 
these two senses plays the greater part. — (Pp. 29, 30.) 

Hallucinations of pressure are more common than 
those of touch. In the dream state the walls of the 
building of a room may seem to contract until the 
sleeper is in a nightmare of trouble with the com- 
pression. These hallucinations are also common in 
certain diseased conditions. 

Hallucinations of audition are very commonly 
caused by inflammation of the inner ear. 

The sufferer hears taunting or insulting voices calling after 
him in the street, and making injurious insinuations about him, 
or sometimes unseen speakers incidentally let fall words which 
confirm his forebodings. — (P. 23.) 

A kind of auditory hallucination worthy of special note is 
"audible thinking," wherein the patient hears his own thoughts 
spoken aloud, and imagines that they can be heard by every- 
body, or else hears them repeated or dictated to him by an 
imaginary being. Fallacious perceptions of the other senses 
are also not uncommon. Many sufferers see the persecutors 
who torment them from a distance by means of magnetic and 
electrical apparatus. They entertain kings and princesses, 
and receive angels' visits ; all these hallucinations occur in a 
state of full consciousness. — (P. 24.) 

Gall relates the case of a minister of state who constantly 
heard insulting words whispered into his left ear ; and in the 
more recent literature of the subject such examples are no 
longer rare. According to Krafft-Ebing, the unilateral voices 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 319 

are heard better when the other ear is closed — when, for 
instance, the patient is lying on it. — (P. 32.) 

While walking alone she hears a voice calling her, she turns 
round, there is no one. While she is at her work familiar 
voices speak in her ear. She hears them on both sides, but 
chiefly on the right. — (P. 35.) 

Hallucinations are ... a frequent cause of violent and 
criminal acts ; for instance, in hallucinatory insanity, epilepsy, 
hysteria, and somnambulism, and especially in delirious states 
(alcohol, morphia, cocaine, and typhus-delirium). Thrown 
into a paroxysm of terror by the phantoms which threaten 
him, or obsessed by his "voices," the sufferer snatches up a 
weapon and perhaps commits a murder or sets fire to the house. 
Or, again, despairing of escape from the enemies who pursue 
and mock him, he puts an end to his sufferings and his life at 
the same time, and often in a skilful and cunningly planned 
manner. — (P. 34.) 

Tactual, auditory, and visual hallucinations most 
frequently occur on the hemianesthetic side. 

Hallucinations of vision are more common than 
those of any other sense. 

Thus Herr Von M told me that when taking his usual 

afternoon walk he used to see regularly on reaching a certain 
spot the head of the squadron returning from their daily 
exercise, and crossing the street at some little distance in front 
of him. One day when he had seen this as usual it occurred to 
him to wonder why the rest of the troops did not follow, and 
he soon discovered that the cavalry he had seen on this 
occasion were phantoms. — (P. 190.) 

Some years ago, a friend and I rode — he on a bicycle, I on a 
tricycle — on an unusually dark night in summer from Glenda- 
lough to Rathdrum. It was drizzling rain, we had no lamps, 
and the road was overshadowed by trees on both sides, 
between which we could just see the sky-line. I was riding 
slowly and carefully some ten or twenty yards in advance, 
guiding myself by the sky-line, when my machine chanced to 
pass over a piece of tin or something else in the road that made 
a great crash. Presently my companion came up, calling to 



320 TRUTH AND ERROR 

me in great concern. He had seen through the gloom my 
machine upset and me flung from it. — (Pp. 191, 192.) 

Gregory mentions the case of a patient in whom the seizure 
was always preceded by the apparition of a hideous old woman 
in a red cloak, who advanced and struck him on the head with 
her cane, whereupon he fell to the ground in convulsions. In 
another case the devil appeared in a shadowy form. Some- 
times the apparitions are less frightful. Conolly tells of a 
patient who saw, in the last few moments before loss of con- 
sciousness, pleasant landscapes spread out before him. — (P. 33. ) 

For example, the commonest visual hallucinations (in which 
black and red play a leading part) are black rats, cats, snakes, 
and spiders, shining stars, fiery spheres, and so on. But these 
do not remain motionless. Either they go diagonally across 
the patient's field of vision, in which case they proceed from the 
hemianassthetic side; or else (generally) they come from be- 
hind the patient, hasten past, and disappear in the distance. 
In this case also the apparitions occur on the hemianassthetic 
side. . . These premonitory hallucinations haunt the sufferer 
even by day, but in the night they become much more per- 
sistent and vivid, and what was only a passing vision before, 
develops into a long scene, in which the patient is called upon 
to take a part. — (P. 35.) 

Sufficient illustrations have perhaps been given 
to exhibit the fundamental classification of hallucina- 
tions. Were I writing a treatise on hallucinations 
rather than a condensed account of the subject, every 
class should be sub-classified by the agency through 
which they are produced. This classification would 
give us, (1) the hallucinations of dreams, (2) the 
hallucinations caused by subverted sensation or 
ecstasy, under which are included the phenomena of 
crystal vision, (3) the hallucinations of suggestion 
or hypnotism, (4) the hallucinations of intoxicants, 
(5) the hallucinations of disease. 

In sleep the senses are dormant while the func- 
tions of life continue. Sense impressions are only 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 32 I 

instantaneous, but feeling impressions endure as 
long as the cause acts, although they may become 
dulled by repetition or unrecognized by habit. It is 
well known that a sense impression may give rise to 
a feeling if it is too intense. It is an old doctrine 
of psychology that sensation is inversely proportional 
to feeling, and it remains true to this extent, that a 
sense impression may be neglected, that is, we may 
not consider the cause though we may consider the 
effect, when the impression will give rise to a feel- 
ing. In the dream state sensation lies dormant 
and feeling has the psychic field to itself. 

In sleep sense impressions frequently impinge 
upon the organs: lights appear in the darkened 
room, sounds are made which produce some slight 
effect upon the ear, and to the sleeping person there 
come many tactual impressions, all of which are 
interpreted as feelings and produce hallucinations 
because feelings are so intimately associated with 
external objects ; these are feeling hallucinations. 

On the other hand if on a cold night the clothing 
is partially removed from the body the feeling of 
discomfort is quite likely to produce an hallucination. 
Drops of water falling upon the face of the sleeper 
may have the same effect. 

The bedcover pressing on the arm is embraced as a mistress 
or felt as a heavy weight ; a dream of being impaled, that is to 
say, of standing on a stake, the point of which was thrust 
through the foot, has been known to arise from the pressure of 
a straw lodged between the toes ; a covering which has slipped 
to the ground is sometimes a source of great embarrassment, 
when it causes us to dream of appearing half clad in the street 
or at a social gathering ; or it may call up visions of skating, 
Alpine travels, Polar expeditions, and these again may sud- 
denly end in the feeling of falling into a gulf, due to a slight 



322 TRUTH AND ERROR 

alteration of the sleeper's position in bed. Gregory, when he 
had a hot-water bottle at his feet, dreamed that he was climb- 
ing Etna and walking on hot lava. Purkinje says: "If our 
hand has become numb by pressure, in the dream-state it may 
appear as something strange and gruesome touching us, and if 
the whole side is affected, we imagine that a strange bedfellow, 
whom we cannot get rid of, is stretched beside us. — (Pp. 54, 55.) 

The influence of position during sleep is generally exhibited 
in one of the following ways: (1) The position of a member 
may be perceived more or less correctly, but suggest an atti- 
tude; for instance, if the foot is stretched and bent back it 
suggests the dream of standing on tip- toe to reach something ; 
(2) the strained position may be taken to be part of a move- 
ment and the dreamer seem to be dancing on his toes; (3) the 
movements may appear to be executed by someone else; (4) 
sometimes the movements seem to be impeded; (5) the 
affected member may be changed in the dream into some animal 
or inanimate object of analogous form; (6) sometimes the 
dream-perception of the member gives rise to abstract ideas, 
which it symbolizes; for instance, the perception of several 
fingers may give rise to dreams of numbers and calculations. 
-(P- 550 

A mustard plaster on the head may cause a man 
to dream of an Indian conflict in which he is 
scalped, as I have observed. 

Thus Herrmann, when suffering from an attack of colic, 
dreamed that his abdomen was opened, and an operation per- 
formed on the sympathetic nerve. Others dream of going up 
for examinations. The house-wife dreams she is giving a 
party, and that all her dainties are burnt up, and so on. — 
(P. 56.) 

An individual directed his servant to sprinkle his pillow 
sometimes after he was asleep (leaving the choice of the par- 
ticular night to the servant) with a perfume which he had only 
used during a certain stay in the country, but to which he had 
then taken a great fancy. On those nights he visited again in 
his dreams the scenes associated in his mind with the perfume. 
The occurrence of imaginary tastes and smells in dreams is 
very rare, so much so that it has been altogether denied by 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 323 

many observers. Still a few cases have been reported. — 
(P- 54.) 

Hallucinations of ecstasy often arise with persons 
engaged in profound abstract thought. Philosophers, 
poets, literary men, generals, and divines are pecu- 
liarly subject to them. Extreme ethical emotions are 
apt in begetting hallucinations. It is through all of 
these cases that the world's literature is replete with 
accounts of hallucinations. Perhaps every great 
man has had them. 

We have abundantly affirmed and illustrated the 
doctrine that sense impressions are instantaneous, 
and the judgments which we form from sense 
impressions are instantaneous, while feeling 
impressions endure while the cause acts. It 
is possible for us to concentrate the attention 
upon the impressions received by one organ, 
but if we fixate the attention on an interrupted suc- 
cession of like impressions we overthrow or subvert 
judgment. As we must at every instant go on to 
form a new judgment, the supposed concentration of 
attention sets the mind adrift to follow feeling 
impressions wherever they may lead. This sub- 
verted sensation I call ecstasy. 

We make a multitude of judgments of recognition 
at one glance of the eye about the room which we 
occupy, or over the landscape when we are out of 
doors. Now, if we can fixate the attention of the eye 
or the ear and abstract the mind from all other sense 
impressions, hallucinations may be produced. This 
secret has been an open one to those who have 
practiced divination in the departed centuries. 
There is a vast body of literature on the subject, 
though it relates chiefly to the abstraction of vision. 



324 TRUTH AND ERROR 

Even as I write, the boys on the street are crying 
the New York papers and tempting purchasers 
with stories of divination by crystal vision. 

In crystal vision the percipient attempts to occupy 
his mind in the contemplation of a constantly 
renewed sense impression, while the mind in fact is 
recalling concepts from memory which he ascribes 
to hallucinatory objects in the glass; that is, he 
forms judgments of things not seen but remembered 
by suggestion from feeling impressions. We may 
express this idea in still another way. In crystal- 
vision experiments the mind of the percipient is 
engaged in recalling memories which may be 
determined by the feelings or may arise at random, 
for it is impossible for the waking mind to cease 
operations. As the thing expected or looked for in 
the glass does not appear, these memory images are 
projected into the glass. 

The percipient strives to banish all conscious thought from 
his mind, and fixes his gaze continuously on a "Braid's 
crystal, ' ' a burning glass in a dark frame, a glass of water or 
some similar reflecting object. Many persons after gazing 
thus for some time begin to see pictures in the crystal, the 
spire of the parish church perhaps, or familiar faces. — (P. 63.) 

An eye-witness relates the following anecdote of 
an occurrence in Egypt: 

His curiosity was excited by Mr. Salt, the English Consul- 
General, who, on suspecting his servants of theft, sent for a 
magician. Mr. Salt himself selected a boy as seer, while the 
magician occupied himself with writing charms on pieces of 
paper which, with incense and perfumes, were afterwards 
burned in a brazier of charcoal ; then, drawing a diagram in 
the boy's right palm, into the middle of which he poured some 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 325 

ink, he bade him look fixedly into it. After various 
visions had come and gone, the form of the guilty person 
appeared to the boy, and was recognized by the description he 
gave. On being arrested, the thief thus strangely convicted 
confessed his crime.— (P. 64.) 

Just as visual images may be called up by gazing on a shin- 
ing object, so by placing a sea-shell to the ear it is possible to 
induce auditory hallucinations. I therefore class such 
hallucinations with crystal visions, which they resemble in 
their content. This analogy is borne out by cases like that of 
the lady who, if she listened to the shell after a dinner-party, 
generally heard repeated, not the conversation of her "lawful 
interlocutor" to which her attention had been directed, but the 
talk of her neighbors on the other side, which she had not 
consciously noted at the time. — (P. 70.) 

All modes of ecstatic hallucination are of this 
character. It is the abstraction of attention to the 
particular object while waiting for a judgment of 
cognition or recognition to come through the intel- 
lectual faculties, while instantaneous judgments con- 
tinue to be made through the emotional faculties. 
The consideration of this fact leads us to restate 
that which may seem already to have been abun- 
dantly affirmed, that the vital organs of metabolism, 
circulation, motility, and reproduction are the end 
organs of feeling, while in the nervous system we 
find organs of feeling and intellection. 

The third class of hallucinations comes from the 
land of suggestion. Much of the intellectual activity 
of mankind is acception, or the receiving of judg- 
ments made by others through the agency of speech ; 
words are heard or seen that express judgments 
which we accept as valid. So much of intellectual 
life is of this character that we are trained in the 
ability of acception. This ability runs astray with 
some persons because there goes not with it the 



326 TRUTH AND ERROR 

habit of constant verification. The speech of human 
beings must be verified in the same manner that 
natural language in presentation and representation 
must be verified. He who accepts the judgments of 
others without intellectual verification is eminently 
qualified for hypnotic suggestion. 

There are some people so naive in their inter- 
pretation of expressed judgments as to suppose that 
what is told them must be either truth or falsehood, 
not being able to distinguish a fallacy from a lie. 
This simplicity in weighing the judgments of others 
is highly conducive to the development of hypnotic 
intellects. 

Frau U., an innkeeper's wife, forty-five years of age, an 
extremely suggestible subject (so much so that while awake a 
mere assurance that she could not move her limbs deprived her 
of all power of movement), was hypnotized by me, and the 
post-hypnotic suggestion given that each time A., who was pres- 
ent, should cough, a fly would alight on her brow. The hal- 
lucination was realized; at each cough of A.'s she raised her 
hand to her forehead and looked up into the air as though 
watching a fly. This did not prevent her, however, from con- 
tinuing with animation her conversation with me on the 
preparations for her daughter's approaching marriage. Her 
prompt reaction to suggestions given in ordinary life rendered 
her post-hypnotic suggestibility valueless as a test of her state 
of consciousness. 

Bernheim communicates the following case of a young girl, 
of unusual intelligence, and free from hysterical tendency: I 
arranged that on waking she should see an imaginary rose. 
She saw it, touched and smelt it, and described it to me ; but 
knowing that I might have given her a suggestion, she asked 
me if the rose was a real or imaginary one, adding that it was 
quite impossible for her to tell the difference. I told her that 
it was imaginary. She believed me, and yet found that by no 
effort of the will could she make it disappear. "I can still see 
and touch it," she said, "as though it were natural; and if you 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 327 

were to show me a real rose beside it, or instead of it, I should 
not be able to tell the one from the other." All this time she 
was thoroughly awake, and talked quietly with me about the 
apparition. — (P. 62.) 

In a former chapter it was stated that the cor- 
puscles of the blood are unicellular organisms and 
that the red corpuscles are built into the sj^stem, so 
that every part is composed of unicellular organisms. 
Each of these organisms is endowed with the rudi- 
ments of life and mind which they take with them 
into the human system. The phenomena of hypno- 
tism reenforce the discoveries of physiology and 
confirm the doctrine that the entire body is the seat 
of consciousness and that the nervous system con- 
stitutes the special apparatus of inference. This 
leads us to a theory of multiple seats of conscious- 
ness which is demonstrated by the phenomena of 
hypnotism, a tempting subject which we are com- 
pelled to ignore by reason of the limitations of our 
argument. 

Hallucinations caused by intoxicants are well 
known. Those occurring through the immoderate 
consumption of alcoholic drinks are most common. 

. . . The hallucinations . . . are generally of a 
depressing nature, and terrifying impressions predominate. 
True, sweet voices are sometimes heard, melodies delight the 
ear, and fair landscapes appear before the eyes, but this sel- 
dom lasts long, monsters and serpents take the place of 
flowers, and the visions shift about and are mingled together. 
Vermin, reptiles, etc., appear in great numbers, such for 
instance as the rats, cats, snakes, mice, and monkeys, which 
fill the visions of delirium tremens. Thus Brierre de Boismont 
found among twenty-one cases — three of them severe — twenty 
in which hallucinations of vermin and such creatures were 
seen swarming over the bed and up the walls. Other sensory 



328 TRUTH AND ERROR 

delusions of a purely fantastic nature are not lacking. Some- 
times black men appear who grimace and threaten, then climb 
the walls, or vanish up the chimney. In other cases the 
visions arise out of the daily occupations of the patient, or out 
of his past experience. — (Pp. 41, 42.) 

In addition to alcoholic beverages many drugs 
produce hallucinations, as opium, hashish, santonin, 
etc. Among the tribes of the western plains of the 
United States a cactus known as peyote is widely 
used in their religious rites. The plants themselves, 
when made into decoctions or when eaten as dried 
fruit, produce a variety of effects, among which are 
those of color vision. Dr. Theodate Smith, an expert 
in experimental psychology, has furnished me with 
the following memoranda of an experiment on her- 
self in the use of the peyote. Earlier trials produced 
in part very disagreeable effects and in part exces- 
sive motor excitement, but after repeated trials 
color visions came only when she placed herself 
under some restraint from motor activity ; then there 
appeared a set of retinal effects in a succession of 
dissolving views which she described to an attendant 
who was charged with making a record of her 
words. 

The following is an extract from this record: 

Branches of coral, in color a deep, beautiful blue. 

Flattened forms of coral shape, deep purple changing to red 
with ruby red tips. 

An electric fountain, many colors. 

Colors of a peacock's tail, form somewhat indistinct. 

Flashes of light over the whole retinal field; predominant 
color a wonderful intense green. 

Flower forms — quantities of violets, yellow in color, flicker- 
ing light over them, also yellow. 

Deep opal-blue rings running outward from a center and in 
constant motion. 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 329 

Beautiful green light, like light in an electric fountain ; no 
special form. 

A complex Grecian pattern, deep blue with white dots sug- 
gesting snowfiakes over it. 

This changes through many tints of blue to turquoise blue ; 
the form becomes a bowl and pitcher ornamented with gold. 

A ship with square sails on the bluest ocean, intensely- 
blue. 

Blue aureoles encircling everything as I half open my eyes 
in dim light. 

Strings of beads of many colors. 

Embroidered leather with rainbow colors flickering over it as 
if from a stained-glass window. 

Nine leaves of silvery gray conventionalized. 

Cat's fur, but colored blue and white. 

The blue becomes lines and forms, the outline of a big 
centipede. 

Venetian glass, amethyst tinted, shades from light to dark, 
wavy lines running through it, forms not distinct. 

An escutcheon, quarterings of blue, steely blue, a shield with 
lines ; around the shield four swallow tails. These enlarge, 
cover and finally blot out the shield. 

A shining laurel leaf. 

A beautiful chandelier, richly jeweled and blazing with 
light. 

A stained-glass window, red, blue, and amber, colors rich 
and deep, forms not well defined. 

A crazy quilt, pretty but very crazy. A transparent flexible 
lily shape, with wavy lines running through it like bird-of- 
paradise feathers ; no color in the form itself, but it seems to 
float in the midst of colored light. 

Phosphorescent fishes' eyes. 

Fish scales of wonderful green, changing to shell shapes in 
the green light. 

A picture of an arctic sunset, with silver rays rising from it, 
and far off on the edge an aureole of beautiful blue. 

A ceiling from which hang ribbon cards of every color. 

A camel with gorgeous trappings, with a palm tree behind 
him. 

Embroidery of red chrysanthemums, variously mixed with 
pale pinks and yellows. 



330 TRUTH AND ERROR 

All of the North American tribes have intoxicants 
that produce hallucinations, but they supplement 
these intoxicants with many rites such as dancing, 
singing-, ululation, the beating of drums, and the tor- 
menting of the body by various painful operations, 
all designed to produce ecstatic states and the con- 
sequent hallucinations. 

Among all tribal men many hallucinations are sup- 
posed to be veridical, as some are supposed to be 
by certain members of the Society for Psychical 
Research. So tribesmen resort to the agencies 
which produce both hallucinations and illusions to 
obtain a view of the world about them, of the past 
and of the future, in order that their conduct may be 
governed by this superior knowledge. 

Had our psychologists attempted to make a 
"census of waking hallucinations in the sane" 
among the North American Indians they would 
have found a hundred per cent, ready to testify in 
their favor. It is the universal belief in savagery, 
for in that stage of culture all men produce hallucina- 
tions for divination — for which times and seasons are 
regularly appointed and systematic means employed. 
But the savage always recognizes that some visions 
are not veridical. False spirits may have testified 
or some evil being may by black art have vitiated 
the ceremony or the percipient may have been 
unable to properly read the communication, for 
communications are told in ambiguous terms. It 
is very interesting to read these communications 
recorded in the annals of the Society, for we find 
that after all it is often necessary to wait for a time 
to discover an event which will fit the halluci- 
nations. 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 33 I 

With the hallucinations already considered, those appearing 
in the course of acute somatic diseases, and as a result of them, 
seem naturally to be classed. Here, as in the delirious states 
associated with intoxication, the swarming of the hallucinations 
is characteristic. This resemblance is not accidental. Indeed, 
the delirious states of somatic disease may, in part at least, be 
referred to intoxication. But of no less importance are the rise 
of temperature, acceleration of metabolic processes, and dis- 
turbances of circulation in the brain cavity (first, active 
hyperaemia; later, in enfeebled action of the heart, venous 
stasis), the importance of which is indicated in typhus, for 
instance, by the parallelism between the violence of the 
delirium and the temperature curve. The initial hallucinatory 
visions of typhus, smallpox, and intermittent fever, occurring 
before the other causes have had time to act, are on the other 
hand to be attributed to the direct influence of the specific 
virus of the fever, as also the afebrile delusions, sometimes 
occurring in intermittent fever in place of the fever attack, and 
the visual and auditory hallucinations which are observed in 
smallpox between the eruptive fever and the fever of the 
suppurating stage. 

Hallucinations also occur in the decline of the disease, dur- 
ing the period of convalescence. First they appear singly, in 
association with those of the fever, and are often recognized 
by the patient as such and concealed from those around him. 
But soon they overmaster the sufferer, and delirious states are 
developed, or states resembling hallucinatory insanity, in 
which visions of corpses, death's-heads, mocking voices, and 
offensive olfactory and gustatory hallucinations play a part. 
Of an equally distressing nature are most of the sensory 
fallacies of collapse-delirium, and those which sometimes pre- 
cede death. In tuberculosis, on the other hand, they are often 
of an agreeable nature, corresponding to the euphoria which is 
so characteristic of this disease. — (Pp. 48-50.) 

The most frequently quoted of all sense-deceptions are those 
of insanity. Some authors have sought to divide them accord- 
ing to their origin into "idiopathic," those which are primary 
but which may also occur in secondary consensual morbid 
states, and "symptomatic," those which occur only as a sec- 
ondary symptom of insanity. In any case a distinction ought 
to be drawn between sporadic hallucinations not associated 



S3 2 TRUTH AND ERROR 

with particular emotional states, and hallucinations which 
reflect the ruling mental tone. This distinction has prog- 
nostic importance, since observation seems to prove that hallu- 
cinations depending on certain morbid emotional states are 
capable of disappearing with them, whilst independent hallu- 
cinations seldom admit of cure, and pass over into the state of 
secondary psychical weakness. 

The particular forms of insanity in which hallucinations 
most frequently occur are such as are associated with dream- 
like beclouding of the intellect. Thus they are a frequent phe- 
nomenon of amentia, but are seldom seen in acute dementia 
with its deep-reaching paralysis of the higher psychical 
functions. Opinion as to the frequency of sensory hallucina- 
tions in melancholia has altered very much of late years, 
chiefly because of the altered meaning of the term, and because 
cases previously classed under melancholia are now referred to 
other groups. Thus, while hallucinations were at one time 
regarded as frequent phenomena of this state, they are now 
held to be rare, or altogether absent from it. In mania hal- 
lucinations only appear when there is clouding of conscious- 
ness, and are generally vague and indistinct. On the other 
hand, illusions are frequent, and mistakes of identity are 
specially characteristic of this state, though not absent from 
other forms of insanity. Snell, who devotes an article to them, 
is of opinion that the confusions are not so much caused by 
mere resemblance, but that a general psychological law lies at 
their root; that the patient is powerless to escape from the 
familiar thought-channels, and therefore grafts his new impres- 
sions on to his old opinions and ideas. In folie circulaire 
hallucinations occur in the maniacal period in association with 
profound mental disturbance, but as regards their occurrence 
in the melancholic phase opinion is again divided. 

Delusional insanity and Paranoia, on the other hand, abound 
in hallucinations, so much so that some forms classed under 
this head are designated "hallucinated insanity'' {kallucina- 
torischer Wahnsinri), and "paranoia hallucinatoria. " The 
sense-deceptions of delusional insanity are vivid in their 
externalization, and resemble in their content the fixed ideas 
which they embody. In cases which end in mental decay the 
hallucinations frequently persist long. In depressive mono- 
mania they are more fragmentary and vague, but are often 



FALLACIES OF SENSATION 333 

kept alive by distressing dreams. . . . The sufferer hears 
taunting or insulting voices calling after him in the street, and 
making injurious insinuations about him, or sometimes unseen 
speakers incidentally let fall words which confirm his forebod- 
ings. — (Pp. 20-23.) 

The physiological conception of memory is that 
concepts are impressed upon the brain and the nerv- 
ous system as elements of structure. Memory is 
thus a function of structure. The revival of con- 
cepts is recollection; such revival is accomplished 
by a sense or feeling impression, but a sense or feel- 
ing impression is a force or mode of motion which is 
utilized by conditions so that the central conscious- 
ness or consciousness of the brain is subject to con- 
ditions which we call causation. Thought is 
therefore explained physiologically by the late 
discovery that sense and feeling impressions traverse 
paths along the fibrous nerves which are diverted by 
the ganglionic nerves to different tracts of the 
brain, where concepts are recorded as structural 
elements. Thus hallucinations are explained by 
referring them to the mechanism of the brain and 
showing how by such mechanism incongruous con- 
cepts may be aroused by defects in its working. 

Now we are prepared to reaffirm that a judgment 
of sensation must be verified to become a cognition, 
for if a judgment of sensation is an hallucination there 
is no cognition. Many of our sensations may be 
verified by repetition, and it is often the case that 
this method establishes their verity. 

The hallucination caused by subjective audition 
cannot be disproved by a repetition of the hallucina- 
tion caused by an injury to the middle ear. An 
hallucination which is a color vision cannot be 



334 TRUTH AND ERROR 

shown not to be veridical in this manner, for it may- 
continue while the intoxication lasts. The ultimate 
test of the verity of a sensation is an appeal to a 
higher faculty of the mind, which is perception, 
that yet requires explication. 

The person who had an hallucination of a church 
congress in her stomach was not in a condition to 
appeal to a higher faculty. Before she realizes that 
she has an hallucination her malady must be cured. 
The man who believes in ghosts when he has an 
hallucination of his dead child appearing to him in 
the cerements of the tomb can best be shown that 
it is an hallucination by curing the malady in his 
understanding. 



CHAPTER XXI 

FALLACIES OF PERCEPTION 

We have found that sense impressions cause 
events of consciousness which produce judgments by 
recalling concepts of sensation, such concepts being 
reinforced and developed by the addition of new- 
judgments. Judgments of perception still employ 
the same sense impressions in the construction of 
new concepts of form, while concepts of form are 
recalled when a judgment of form is made. A new 
concept of form is constituted by the increment of a 
new judgment of form. Therefore concepts of 
sensation are concepts of kind, while concepts of 
perception are concepts of form. As a judgment of 
sensation must always precede a judgment of per- 
ception, the same sense impression which gives rise 
to a judgment of sensation will, in the maturer mind 
of the infant, also give rise to a judgment of percep- 
tion; therefore we are compelled to reconsider the 
sense impressions from which perceptions arise. 
Having already found how judgments of perception 
are considered and how such judgments are verified, 
we have now to exhibit in what manner there comes 
into existence a multitude of judgments of percep- 
tion which are never verified, and yet are entertained 
in the mind as if they were veridical. 

Fallacies of perceptions are errors of judgment 
respecting forms. Such judgments may occur 
through unverified judgments of sensation, and the 

335 



336 TRUTH AND ERROR 

fallacy is repeated in a higher state of mind. Judg- 
ments, when they are first made, are of slow 
growth, but when once made, by repetition they 
become habitual and do not arise in the corticle con- 
sciousness. 

The human mind cannot perceive form without first 
sensing kind. On the other hand it seems almost 
impossible to sense a kind without at the same time 
perceiving a form, though we may pay attention to the 
kind or to the form at will. In our discussion of 
fallacies of sensation, we have tried to pay attention 
to the kind, but we have found that kinds were 
usually expressed as forms. The experimental 
observer, Miss Smith, not only spoke of colors as 
dissolving in succession, but at the same time the 
colors themselves were explained as forms. Most of 
the fallacies of sensation which we have cited in this 
discussion, most of those which appear in the general 
literature of the subject, and most of those which 
occur in experience are not only hallucinations of 
sensation, but they are also specters of perception, 
because the human mind rarely senses an object 
without at the same time perceiving the object. 
When I see the color of the rose, I see the rose as a 
form. When I see the color of the cloud, I see the 
cloud. When a word is pronounced in my hearing 
I hear the sound as a sound, perceive the person in 
the other room represented vicariously by the voice, 
and at the same time hear the word as a word and 
as a symbol of meaning. In general, the description 
of a sensation is best accomplished in terms of per- 
ception. 

We must know things as kinds before we know 
them as forms, and we must first judge of things as 



FALLACIES OF PERCEPTION 337 

kinds before we judge of them as forms. But when 
we already know things as kinds, we can re-cognize 
them as kinds by instantaneous judgments, and at 
once go on to cognize them as forms, or to make judg- 
ments about them as forms. In a former chapter, 
fallacies of sensation were often described in terms 
of perception, for they seem always to produce 
fallacies of perception, and in the state of mind 
under which they are produced it is the forms, not 
the kinds, which are of chief interest to the sub- 
ject. 

There are many misperceptions ; so common are 
they as to be scarcely noticed. If a person will 
observe his own thoughts from moment to moment, 
he will be surprised at the number of fallacious per- 
ceptions which he makes, some of which are immedi- 
ately corrected, others are corrected after lapse of 
time, and probably many others that are never cor- 
rected, because of their insignificance in the practical 
affairs of life. These errors of judgment are espe- 
cially common in audition and vision, the two senses 
most highly vicarious. A sound may be obscure by 
reason of its faintness, or by reason of diverted 
attention. Sight may be obscure by reason of the 
twilight, or it may be obscure because attention is 
elsewhere directed. All such impressions may be 
veridical or may be fallacious. If I am intently 
listening for a sound I may interpret a sight for a 
sound; if I am intently looking for an object, I may 
interpret a sound for a sight. If I am intently 
listening for a particular sound and hear another, I 
may interpret it for the one I was expecting ; if I am 
intently gazing in expectation of seeing one object, 
and another falls upon the field of vision, I may see 



33% 



TRUTH AND ERROR 



in it the one for which I was intently gazing. These 
are all misperceptions. 

I draw nine black lines on white paper, as shown 
in Fig. i, and you see them as lines on paper. 
Now close one eye, and lift the page horizontally 
nearly to the height of the eye, and these lines will 
appear as pins. By a little manipulation you can 
see them now as pins and now as lines. You 
know they are not pins, yet you see them as pins; 




Fig. i. 

that is, you have formed a habit of interpreting 
sense impressions like those made by the lines 
when they are in certain attitudes as marks or 
symbols of standing objects set as pins, stakes, 
men, or trees, and so thoroughly established is 
this habit that such an attitude of lines may be 
interpreted as standing objects when they are not, 



FALLACIES OF PERCEPTION 



339 




Fig. 2. 



340 TRUTH AND ERROR 

and you will affirm that they are lines at one time 
and standing objects at another. This is one of the 
standard illustrations of misperception. Now will 
be understood the statement when it is affirmed 
that only color is manifested to the eye by the 
object, and that when such a judgment is formed it 
may or may not be valid, but that the color is inter- 
preted as a symbol of the object in a judgment of 
perception. 

Before me as I write there is a steam register, 
which is covered with a tablet composed of bars with 
interspaces, the bars being arranged in patterns ; a 
drawing of a portion of this tablet is illustrated in 
the accompanying diagram Fig. 2. 

Looking upon it in the ordinary position in which 
a book is read it appears as a pattern of bars ; turn 
the top of the book to the left in such a manner as to 
see the bars obliquely, and it appears as a collection 
of crates or boxes inclined one upon another ; turn 
it again so that the direction of sight is changed 
ninety degrees from the first position, and you can 
see it as a series of steps like a stairway, every tread 
having a series of reentrant angles. Again, we see 
that in vision nothing but color as in a flat is given to 
consciousness, and that form comes by interpretation 
or inference. Deftness in inference is acquired by 
practice ; that is, it is the result of experience. We 
come to interpret lines in this manner as meaning 
form by the experience of every moment of waking 
life, and inherit the skill from a long line of 
ancestors, so that our powers of perceiving formed 
in this manner are both inherited and habitual, or, 
as I prefer to say, both instinctive and habitual, and 
that which is both inherited and habitual is intuitive. 






FALLACIES OF PERCEPTION 341 

Light and shade are interpreted as deftly as lines, 
and we can see forms without other colors, so that a 
portrait which you know is only light and shade, is 
a symbol of the form and expression of a human 
face. But there are other colors both in nature and 
in art, and we instinctively and habitually interpret 
all colors as forms; but sometimes we see colors 
without seeing forms. The illusions of inference by 
the interpretation of lines in vision have been the 
subject of much investigation in psycho-physics, 
which is one branch of scientific psychology. But 
adequate experiments have not yet been made in 
light and shade, and in other colors when not repre- 
sented by lines. The doctrine dates back to the 
days of Berkeley, who set forth the nature of percep- 
tion in vision in such manner that it has become a 
classic, though he afterward devoted his energies to 
the propagation of fallacies in metaphysics and tar- 
water. 

From time to time during the last thirty years, I 
have studied the nature of perception in myself and 
in others. Especially have I studied it as a mental 
phenomenon in the untutored Indians of North 
America. On every hand these facts have 
appeared: first, that every perception as a judgment 
involves an interpretation; second, that perceptions 
may be true or erroneous, as inferences are valid or 
invalid; and third, that visual perception itself is 
acquired by experience. 

Among the Indians, I have found that at first lines 
are not easily interpreted, so that pictures in lines 
do not seem to represent forms; but the power of 
interpreting forms by lines is rapidly gained. I 
have found also that the power of interpreting light 



342 TRUTH AND ERROR 

and shade is great in the savage for natural objects, 
but must be cultivated for unknown objects of art. 
And, again, I have found that the power of inter- 
preting the miscellaneous colors of pictures is well 
developed when they represent things with which 
they are already familiar, but that it is necessary to 
familiarize them with things to develop the power 
of interpreting unknown forms. 

Again, in topographic maps, relief is represented 
usually by light and shade in hachures, but in the 
best maps relief is represented by lines which follow 
the contour at equal intervals of altitude. Such 
maps cannot be read by the inexperienced man, but 
he can develop the power so that a contour map will 
seem to be a picture of mountains and valleys and 
of hills and dales. Experience has taught me that 
this power is more easily gained and greatly assisted 
by representing relief in one color and drainage in 
another, as in blue; for when the knowledge that 
water is blue is represented in the map as blue, it 
will carry the streams down and aid in the percep- 
tion of the relief. 

From the illustrations which have been given it 
will perhaps be made clear that perception is the 
interpretation of a symbol, and that the power of 
interpretation comes by experience. We are con- 
stantly perceiving with all our senses, but sounds 
and sights are the most abundant, coming in hosts 
with every minute of wakefulness, and a habit of 
interpretation is formed which is conjoined with an 
inherited aptness. External forms do not come to the 
eye or the ear as consciousness, but only to the mind 
as inferences. Habitual judgments of the mind 
which are illusions because unverified, may occur 



FALLACIES OF PERCEPTION 343 

again and again in millions of cases, and the repeti- 
tion but confirms the illusion, and such intuitive 
illusions can hardly be dispelled even by overwhelm- 
ing knowledge, but the truth and the error will 
appear side by side and be entertained as verities, 
and the mind will search for some metaphysical 
explanation of them. As a last resort of logic, it 
will assume the existence of a mystery, and be con- 
firmed in the doctrine that the universe is contradic- 
tory. 

Our forefathers called the sky a firmament. It 
was believed to be a solid which presented a surface 
toward us, and this misconception is universal 
among barbaric and savage people. By the Indian 
the sky is supposed to be ice, or some other crystal- 
line solid, and it does appear to be a surface, in 
spite of our knowing that it is not. This arises from 
the fact that we always discover color on surfaces, 
and when surfaces are removed usually colors are 
changed. We have thus as individuals and as a 
race in all generations habitually considered color to 
be a symbol of surface. That which is habit in the 
interpretation of a sense impression contradicts that 
which we have learned by various operations of 
reasoning from other sense data. Thus habitual 
illusions often contradict certitudes, as they may be 
discovered by the higher forms of reason, and we 
often entertain certitudes and fallacies as if 
co-existent, and the world seems to be contradictory. 
These judgments have a curious effect on the mind, 
for the contradictory judgments may both be 
held in a vague way to be certitudes and still in a 
vague way to be fallacies, until finally this is 
explained by a theory, that both are unknown and 



344 TRUTH AND ERROR 

unknowable noumena which are manifested by- 
deceptive phenomena. So habits of judgment are 
formed which are difficult to eradicate. 

To unverified perception the rainbow as a form 
with a surface has been established, because of the 
habit of interpreting color as a mark of surface ; this 
fallacy is common, perhaps universal. The clouds 
often seem to be painted upon the sky, or to be 
moving along the sky, but the trained meteorologist 
in time learns to distinguish clouds as forms, and 
discovers fleeting figures in them, and he still further 
discovers the relative position of clouds by recogniz- 
ing the near from the far, and yet, to the untrained 
observer, there still lingers an element of fallacy. 

It was long believed that the earth has ends, 
corners, foundation, and a flat upper surface. When 
it was discovered that the earth is a spheroid, the 
illusion of up and down as components of direction at 
right angles to a flat plane was dispelled, and a con- 
cept substituted of down toward the center and up 
from the center. While a few grasped the idea, the 
many still held to the old, and now, after more than 
two thousand years, there are people who have not 
mastered the concept. 

One man sees the disc of the moon when it is 
riding high as having the size of the top of a teacup, 
another as large as a cartwheel. But the moon will 
seem to be larger than a barn if it is seen behind a 
distant barn, or it may seem to be as large as a great 
mountain when it rises behind such mountain, and 
yet every intelligent man knows the moon to be 
2,162 miles in diameter. As the moon rides the 
heavens, it seems to be this side of the surface of the 
sky, although we know that there is no such surface. 



FALLACIES OF PERCEPTION 345 

Such habitual judgments of space and form seem to 
contradict our knowledge. When knowledge con- 
tradicts primitive and habitual judgments, there is a 
pseudo -belief in both, and the universe seems con- 
tradictory. 

The sun appears to us as a mile or two away, but 
we know that it is ninety-three millions of miles away. 
The sun seems very much nearer to us when it rides 
high in the heavens than when it comes up behind a 
near hill, or when it rises behind a distant mountain 
with intervening plains. What we know and what 
appears seem to contradict each other; and anti- 
nomies are invented to explain these contradictions. 

By a natural process of fallacious judgment, the 
idea of space as void is developed as an existent 
thing or body. This is the ghost of space — the crea- 
tion of an entity out of nothing. I may remove the 
furniture from the room, it is still filled with air; I 
may remove the air from the room, it is still filled 
with ether. We may suppose it possible to remove 
the ether, then nothing — void — remains, but man has 
no means by which to accomplish the feat, and we call 
the air and the ether space. The space of which we 
speak is occupied ; it is the space inclosed by the walls, 
occupied by air and ether. We may measure its 
dimensions by measuring the walls, but we cannot 
measure the void. We can by no possibility con- 
sider non-space or void as a term of reality; we 
can consider only the walls as the real terms. If we 
reason about it mathematically and call it x, the 
meaning of the x in the equation is finally resolved 
by expressing it in terms of body as they are repre- 
sented by surface. This non-space has no number; 
it is not one or many in one — it is nothing. It is not 



346 TRUTH AND ERROR 

extension as figure or structure — it is nothing. 
Void space should be called voidable space, as void- 
able by one set of extensions when filled by another. 
The fallacy concerning space is born of careless 
naming. No harm is done by this popular mis- 
perception of space until we use it in reasoning as a 
term of reality ; then the attributes of space may be 
anything because they are nothing. Such space is 
the occult noumenon, the reified void. This is the 
space of Kant, and usually the space of metaphysic. 
It is the reification of "pure" property, void of all 
extension which can have no relations ; that which 
is without relation is non-existent. 

When I consider the distance from here to San 
Francisco, I may think of the plateaus, mountains, 
hills, and valleys which have to be surmounted and 
crossed in traversing the distance, or I may think of 
the days required to make the journey. Yet I imply 
or posit the plateaus, mountains, hills, and valleys ; 
so when I consider the distance to the sun I posit 
the spacial particles which intervene, though I may 
cancel their consideration, but if I affirm that space 
as nothing intervenes I affirm a fallacy. By calling 
it a five days' journey I do not annihilate the 
topography. 

In the earlier stages of culture, when there was no 
knowledge of air and ether, this was the judgment 
of mankind, but I must not go on repeating this 
judgment when I know the truth. If the primeval 
judgments are held to be veridical, and scientific 
judgments also to be veridical, then the world is 
contradictory. Metaphysicians formulate these 
erroneous judgments and scientific judgments as 
antinomies. 



FALLACIES OF PERCEPTION 347 

Misperceptions have been discussed sufficiently for 
present purposes as exhibiting the characteristics of 
illusions. I go on to discuss specters which are 
derived from hallucinations in order to set forth the 
characteristics of delusions. 

It will not be necessary for us to rediscuss all the 
hallucinations set forth in the last chapter, but it 
may be well to recall some of them as illustrating 
these principles. 

Fallacies of sensation in the metabolic sense seem 
rarely to produce fallacies of perception. If they do 
arise they are vague. It is rarely, indeed, when 
they are produced that the deceived mind refers 
them to distinct objects as forms, but in extreme 
cases deceptive forms appear, especially in the 
case of odors, as when the subject refers such 
odors to the bodies of the dead, as the woman 
who referred the pestilential odors which she 
believed she sensed to the corpses buried under the 
Salpetriere. 

Usually the fallacies of touch produce illusions 
which the deceived subject attributes to some form 
of object which touches the skin ; commonly these 
objects are insects. 

In my study of the literature of hallucinations, I 
find but few hallucinations of the sense of pressure ; 
yet there are a few, as when people dream or 
insanely imagine that they are enclosed by walls 
which are ever becoming narrower and thus com- 
pressing them. 

To the person who has all of the senses, most of 
the hallucinations occur in audition and vision, 
because of the function which spoken and written 
language performs in the ideation of these senses. 



34-8 TRUTH AND ERROR 

Hallucinatory sounds often produce phantasmal 
words spoken by spectral persons. 

The spectral person may be the self, or it may be 
another or a congress of others. When the voices of 
others are falsely perceived as persons, these others 
are specters. 

Specters may be classified by senses deceived, and 
subclassified by the agencies through which they are 
produced. The class of specters derived from 
hallucinations of vision we will treat as thus sub- 
classified, for the purpose of illustrating the doctrine. 

When the nervous system is relaxed in slumber so 
that sense impressions carried by the fibrous nerves 
are directed by the ganglionic nerves at random to 
different portions of the cortex of the brain, sense 
impressions are produced upon that organ which 
result in dreams, and the imagination of the sleeper 
revels in wonderland. As these are of nightly 
occurrence, and all men dream, the ghosts of dream- 
land that fill the sleeping life are remembered in 
many a revery of the waking life. 

In the culture reached at the stage of tribal 
society, images reflected by the water or other shin- 
ing objects are supposed to be ghosts. Echoes are 
also referred to ghosts. Thus there is an explana- 
tion given to the common phenomena of reflected 
sights and sounds by attributing them to the ghosts 
which appear in dreams. 

Hallucinations of ecstasy always seem to produce 
phantasms or specters of vision. Hence the specters 
seen by the great men of the world who have had a 
weight of affairs to contemplate — too great for their 
mental faculties ; hence the specters seen by divines 
and poets. Such ghosts can be summoned readily 



FALLACIES OF PERCEPTION 349 

by those phenomena which we have classified under 
the general designation of crystal vision, for the 
mind seems able by an effort of will to abstract 
attention from sense impressions in a fixed gaze 
upon a bright object, and then to be deluded with 
false judgments about such bright objects, seeing 
in the bright object itself many strange forms which 
are recalled from memory and projected into many 
incongruous relations of space. The phantastic 
images of the Braid's crystal are thus ghosts sum- 
moned from the vasty deep of hallucination. 

The hallucinations of hypnotism make men see 
things which do not exist, and prohibit men from 
seeing things upon which their eyes are turned, 
when the patient is under the influence of the words 
or of the suggestions of a dominant operator. 

Chloroform, ether, peyote, and many other drugs 
bring us hallucinations under conscious experimenta- 
tion. But there are many intoxicants. In tribal 
society intoxicants are used for the purpose of 
producing hallucinations ; in modern society alcohol 
is used as a beverage to produce gustatory pleasure ; 
but in whatever way intoxicants are used hallucina- 
tions are produced. The hallucinations of obscure 
vision, reinforced by the hallucinations of dream- 
ing, reinforced by the hallucinations of hypnotism, 
are still reinforced by the hallucinations of intoxi- 
cation, until ghosts are the common property of 
mankind, and only through scientific training is the 
mind able to banish them. But these ghosts, while 
they affect the lives of many sane people, do not 
take entire possession of them. 

When, however, the mind is diseased, the halluci- 
nations of sane life take possession of the person. 



35° TRUTH AND ERROR 

The poor soul possessed by hallucination becomes a 
prey to melancholia, hysteria, and dementia. But 
the mind of the superstitious man, who is ever 
recalling the phantasms born of hallucination, is 
exploiting upon the brink of the sea of hallucination 
into which he may plunge by insanity. While 
ghosts may be smelled, touched, or heard, yet they 
are more commonly seen for vision is the most ideal- 
istic sense. 

In the realm of ghosts there are five provinces — 
the land of dreams, the land of ecstasy, the land of 
suggestion, the land of intoxication, and the land 
of insanity. In tribal society ghosts of animals 
prevail, while in civilized society ghosts of men pre- 
vail. If you were talking to a savage about some 
unusual occurrence, he would tell you how he had 
been warned by a bear, that a hummingbird had 
appeared, that a rattlesnake had crossed his way, 
that an eagle came to him in his dreams. Homer's 
ghosts all appear as deities in the guise of human 
beings. 

For twenty centuries metaphysic has been in 
search of the noumenon — the thing-in-itself. For a 
long time it spoke with disrespect of scientific 
research, but in modern times it patronizes science 
as a very useful adjunct to metaphysic by showing 
how specters, as phenomena, symbolize noumena. 
The assumptions of metaphysic as it patronizes 
science would be the richest jest of civilization had 
they not their equal in the ridicule they make in 
considering realities as base-born, belonging only 
to the lower world where men live, while meta- 
physic is supposed to dwell in a region of sublime 
thought. 



FALLACIES OF PERCEPTION 351 

We have defined ghosts as fallacies of hallucina- 
tion conceived as forms. Those who believe in 
ghosts define them in some other way. Milton may 
be considered one of the best authorities on ghosts : 

for spirits when they please 

Can either sex assume, or both; so soft 

And uncompounded is their essence pure ; 

Not tied or manacled with joint or limb, 

Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones, 

Like cumbrous flesh ; but in what shape they choose, 

Dilated or condens'd, bright or obscure, 

Can execute their airy purposes, 

And works of love or enmity fulfill. 

Shakspere does not believe in ghosts, but he 
knows how they are seemingly produced by hypno- 
tism. 

Ham. — Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make 
of me. You would play upon me ; you would seem to know 
my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you 
would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my com- 
pass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little 
organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood! do you think I 
am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instru- 
ment you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon 
me. 

Enter Polonius. 

God bless you, sir ! 

Pol. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and 
presently. 

Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in shape of a 
camel? 

Pol. By the mass, an 'tis like a camel, indeed. 

Ham. Methinks, it is like a weasel. 

Pol. It is backed like a weasel. 

Ham. Or, like a whale? 

Pol. Very like a whale. 

Ham. Then, will I come to my mother by and by. They 
fool me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by. 



CHAPTER XXII 

FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 

Fallacies have been divided into two grand 
divisions, which we have called illusions and delu- 
sions. It will be remembered that we are reclassify- 
ing illusions and delusions, each into five classes. 
Of the illusions we have already set forth the mis- 
sensations and the misperceptions, and of the 
delusions we have set forth the hallucinations and the 
specters. In considering fallacious apprehensions 
we discover misapprehensions and phantasms. Let 
us first set forth the nature of misapprehensions. 

We are conscious of pressure when bodies impinge 
against us, and we are conscious of push when we 
impinge against other bodies ; we are therefore con- 
scious of energy both from an active standpoint and 
from a passive standpoint. But the energy of which 
we are conscious is that of molar bodies. We must 
here recall the fact that knowledge begins in the 
race and also in the infant with the cognition of 
molar bodies. To the primitive or naive appre- 
hension, motion is an effect of a cause, and this 
cause is considered as something which acts on 
another and produces motion in self, in order to act 
on that other, and it may also produce motion in 
that other. It was long before man cognized that 
force is itself motion and motion is force. Primitive 
man formed the habit of considering motion as an 
effect of force. He was conscious that he could 

352 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 353 

exercise force, and discovered that it could produce 
molar motion. He knew nothing of molecular 
motion, or that the force which he exercised was 
derived from molecular motion, so he considered 
force and motion as disparate properties ; this is the 
primordial misapprehension. 

Erroneous judgments once made may be repeated 
in perpetuating fallacies, for this constant repetition 
of fallacious judgments is intuition, and there seems 
to be something sacred about intuition. A world of 
metaphysic is built on this foundation, that habitual 
or intuitive judgments are the primordial endow- 
ments of mind. A myth is invented to explain a 
fallacy, then the myth becomes sacred and the 
moral nature is enlisted in its defense. 

The stars were seen to move along the firmament, 
or surface of the solid, from east to west, as men 
move along the surface of the earth at will. But 
the heavenly bodies move by constantly repeated 
paths, and so primitive man invents myths to 
explain these repeated paths. For example, the 
Utes say that the Sun could once go where he 
pleased, but when he came near to the people he 
burned them. Tavots, the Rabbit-god, fought with 
the Sun and compelled him to travel by an appointed 
path along the surface of the sky, so that there 
might be day and night. It is an offense to the 
religion or moral sentiment of the Ute to question 
this explanation. 

The man is conscious that he can move himself, 
though he is not conscious that the molecular 
motion in his body is motion, but he is conscious 
that it produces the effect of molar motion, and he 
calls this unknown something force. In what man- 



354 TRUTH AND ERROR 

ner this molecular motion of the particles of the 
body is transmuted into molar motion of the body, is 
not known except by a few scientific men who see 
that molecular motion of the particles is transmuted 
into the molar motion of the body through the 
metabolism of the muscle, and that this motility 
or self-activity is controlled by the will which 
controls the choice or aninity of the molecules of the 
muscles. 

This primordial misapprehension is universal to 
mankind in tribal society, and universal in explain- 
ing all motion. Although not formulated in this 
manner, it is practically believed that motion, which 
is simple and well known y is the medium between 
occult force as one force acts on another. This is a 
very natural error in the stage of culture to which it 
pertains. 

We speak of the sun, the moon, and the stars as 
rising and setting, and when the sun rises we conceive 
it in such terms of speech, but in fact the earth in its 
daily rotation turns toward the sun. Under favor- 
able circumstances I can see the earth turn toward 
the sun, down in the front when looking at the sun, 
and up as my back is turned. I have often experi- 
mented in this manner with both the sun and the 
moon, when I have been traveling on the desert, 
and I can see their rising and setting as the rotation 
of the earth. I assure you it is a marvelous revela- 
tion. It seems like riding on a Ferris wheel. It is 
just such revelations as these that a man must 
experience when he discovers new truths in 
science. When the fallacy wholly vanishes and the 
verity appears in all its meaning, it is impossible to 
conceive a fallacy; but when the fallacy and the 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 355 

verity are both believed, we believe contradictions 
or antinomies. 

Phenomena are expressed in words before they 
are properly understood; when they come to be 
known the facts do not properly fit them. I speak 
of the path of the heavenly orbs extending from 
east to west, but the fact is that the earth revolves 
from west to east. The metaphysician takes 
propositions to express judgments, as they are 
formed before the phenomena are properly under- 
stood by science, to be valid, and then finding that 
which science ultimately discovers, takes it also 
to be valid, and discovers in the world a set of con- 
tradictions. 

Consider a tower a thousand feet high, from which 
there projects an arm so that a cannonball falling 
from it will strike the ground outside of the base 
of the tower. Now let a ball be dropped from this 
arm, and you say it falls to the ground in a straight 
line. This is not true; the cannonball and the 
earth both have the motion of the earth in rotation 
about its axis; the path of the cannonball, there- 
fore, has two components, one in the direction of 
rotation and another in the direction of fall. Its 
path, therefore, is in the direction of fall and rota- 
tion. This is not all of the path of the ball : it is 
moving in revolution with the earth and the moon ; 
it is also moving in revolution with the orbs of the 
solar system about the sun as the center; it is also 
moving with the solar system about some point in 
the galaxy. It falls to the earth, therefore, in a 
vortical or spiral path, because the earth itself is 
moving in such a path. For some purposes it is 
necessary only to consider this movement of the 



356 TRUTH AND ERROR 

earth as a straight line, because only this component 
of path must be considered when we consider the 
change of the ball in relation to objects on the earth, 
when the real path of the cannonball seems to 
contradict the considered path, and we have an 
antinomy. 

You say that the book lying on the table is at rest, 
and you conceive rest as a motionless state. But this 
is not true ; the book which lies on the table has the 
motion of the earth on its axis, and it has also the 
motion of the hierarchy of celestial bodies, and it has 
also the motion of a hierarchy of molecular bodies. 
Rest, therefore, is only motion parallel to the other 
bodies of this room, and if you deflect its other 
motion, so that it is no longer parallel to the other 
bodies, you produce molar motion. If you still hold 
that rest is a motionless state, and then apprehend, 
as you do, that the book is in motion when at rest, 
you believe contradictions. These contradictions 
are antinomies. One or other of every antinomy is 
a fallacy. 

If I have set forth the nature of antinomies clearly, I 
am prepared to set forth the fallacy of Kant's second 
antinomy. This fallacy consists in holding that 
there is some force which is not motion, but struc- 
ture. It is the failure to conceive properly that all 
bodies are composed of discrete particles which are 
incorporated by modes of motion, and the failure 
also to conceive that there is a hierarchy of bodies 
in which the particle itself is a constituent and that 
the particle partakes of all the motion of the bodies 
in which it is incorporated, so that the motion of 
the particle is vortical. No matter how large or how 
small the particle may be, it exists in an environ- 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 357 

ment of other particles with which it collides; and 
by reason of its environment its tendency to a 
rectilineal path is made vortical, and whenever this 
vortical path is disturbed by an unwonted collision, 
it has a tendency to be straightened. Thus the 
cannonball falling has its path to the earth deflected 
to one somewhat more in a right line. In order that 
this statement may more clearly be understood, it 
requires a further development of the motion of a 
particle in a hierarchy of bodies. If we can attain to 
this concept, then the fundamental doctrines of 
physics are self-evident. 

The misapprehensions relating to the forces of 
molecular bodies linger much longer than those 
relating to stellar bodies. Only in late years have 
we learned that heat is a mode of motion, that light 
is a mode of motion, that electricity is a mode of 
motion, and a few physicists still believe that gravity 
is an occult force. Although the law of the per- 
sistence of energy or the correlation of forces is 
established, yet a few apprehend gravity to be an 
occult force, as attraction and repulsion involving 
actio in distans; yet gravity, when it is understood 
as a mode of motion, is so simple that all of its 
laws can be derived by the Euclidean process from 
the law of the persistence of energy. 

There yet remain certain properties or bodies as 
forces which usually are not conceived as modes of 
motion. Inertia and rigidity are the two most 
important. If they are deprived of their occult 
attributes, all other forces fall into line as modes of 
motion. Inertia, as denned by Xewton, is resist- 
ance to deflection of motion, or resistance to acceler- 
ation, positive or negative ; but when we remember 



358 TRUTH AND ERROR 

that a body has the internal motion of its parts, and 
properly conceive that these motions are deflected 
when the body is accelerated, inertia becomes simple 
as resistance to deflection. When we conceive that 
inertia is resistance to deflection, it becomes a 
proposition, easily comprehended, that rigidity is 
resistance to the differential deflection of the 
molecular parts of a body. Every one of its minute 
parts must be moved if the body is moved, and the 
regional parts as distinguished from the molecular 
parts cannot be moved without fracturing the body. 
Thus we see that rigidity can be explained simply 
as a mode of motion without resort to occult force. 

I am riding in a railway coach. The world 
moves by. Houses and men are on the wing, land- 
scape and animals are in flight, yet all this motion 
in the external world is an illusion which I soon 
learn to correct. I and my railway coach are the 
moving bodies. Every time I look out of the window 
I correctly interpret the motion in this manner. My 
coach stops at a railway station, and the trains near 
me move. Now, I have formed a habit of inter- 
preting the passing of outside bodies as motion in 
myself and the coach, and when the trains outside 
move I infer that I and my coach move, and so 
strong is this inference that I am impelled to look 
for some verification before I can decide in which 
body the molar motion inheres, for the contradictory 
judgments are both intuited. 

It has been demonstrated by science that motion 
is persistent — cannot be created or annihilated — and 
the demonstration has been accepted by a great 
body of scientific men. Antecedently to this demon- 
stration Newton had propounded three laws of 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 359 

motion, one of which is that action and reaction are 
equal and in opposite directions. In this law the 
persistence of motion or the indestructibility of 
energy was implied, but at first its full significance 
was not understood, perhaps not even by Newton 
himself. 

In the "Principia" his first chapter is a series of 
definitions, the third of which is as follows : 

"The visinsita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resist- 
ing, by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavors to 
persevere in its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving 
uniformly forward in a right line. 

"This force is ever proportional to the body whose force it is, 
and differs nothing from the inactivity of the mass, but in our 
manner of conceiving it. A body, from the inactivity of 
matter, is not without difficulty put out of its state of rest or 
motion. Upon which account this vis insita may, by a most 
significant name, be called vis inertia, or force of inactivity. 
But a body exerts this force only when another force impressed 
upon it endeavors to change its condition, and the exercise of 
this force may be considered both as resistance and impulse ; it 
is resistance, in so far as the body for maintaining its present 
state, withstands the force impressed ; it is impulse, in so far as 
the body, by not easily giving way to the impressed force of 
another, endeavors to change the state of that other. Resist- 
ance is usually ascribed to bodies at rest, and impulse to those 
in motion; but motion and rest as commonly conceived are 
only relatively distinguished, nor are those bodies always truly 
at rest which commonly are taken to be so." 

In the last clause it is apparent that Newton him- 
self was conscious of an illusion in the common con- 
ception of the term rest, and it is plain from his 
entire discussion that his term inertia stood for real 
force, although many scholars since his time have 
denied this proposition. Had Newton discovered 
the real nature of what he called vis inertice^ the 



360 TRUTH AND ERROR 

"Principia" would have been simplified, as it has 
been since his time, by definitions given to momen- 
tum, energy, force, and power. But even these 
newer definitions can be revised and the subject 
presented in a simpler manner. 

Vis inerti<z y or inertia, is a component of real force, 
inherent in every particle of matter as speed of 
motion, which can be changed in direction only 
through the agency of collision. The explanation of 
Newton's third law of motion in this manner 
changes the ideas of motion as they have hitherto 
existed in philosophy. Motion as speed is inherent, 
and not something imposed from without. If, 
indeed, this be true, then much reasoning in scien- 
tific circles must be revised, for it has far-reaching 
results. 

In every mind the term rest seems to imply 
absence of motion, and thus to have a negative con- 
tent. This implication still properly remains with 
the term, and while rest does not mean absence of 
all motion, it still means absence of molar motion. 
To the ancients, it meant absence of all motion, and 
this is the fallacy, but it still means absence of molar 
motion. My pulse beats as the heart beats and the 
blood flows. The book on my desk is pulseless ; that 
is, it is devoid of that motion of blood impelled by the 
heart at every beat; still it has motion, though not 
pulse motion; so the book which lies on the desk 
has motion, but not molar motion. As the book is 
not devoid of motion because it has no pulse, so it is 
not devoid of motion because it has no molar motion. 

Molar motion is the only motion that can be 
seen directly by the eye without instrumental aid. 
These molar motions have been so often inferred 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 361 

and verified that the concept is intuitional in every 
human mind. The concept of stellar motion has 
also been verified, and the concept is intuitive with 
some but not with all minds, but the concept of 
stellar motion has the same validity as the concept 
of molar motion. The concept of molecular motion, 
though not intuitional to most people, is just as valid 
as that of stellar or molar motion. 

Concepts of molar, stellar and molecular motion 
are formed in precisely the same manner by the 
consolidation of verified judgments. The distinction 
is not between sense judgments and intuitive judg- 
ments, but between verified and unverified judg- 
ments, for intuitive judgments may themselves be 
fallacious. 

If I seem to dwell on this point and elaborate the 
explanation, it is because the illusion of a motion- 
less state must be dispelled before other facts in 
relation to motion can properly be considered. 

An unquestioned fallacy exerts a vital influence on 
all modes of thought to which it may relate, and 
engenders a spirit of defense that easily develops 
into antagonism. 

In Spencer's "First Principles," the third chapter 
is on ultimate scientific ideas. In the seventeenth 
section he says : 

"A body impelled by the hand is clearly perceived to move, 
and to move in a definite direction : there seems at first sight 
no possibility of doubting that its motion is real, or that it is 
towards a given point. Yet it is easy to show that we not only 
may be, but usually are, quite wrong in both these judgments. 
Here, for instance, is a ship which, for simplicity's sake, we 
will suppose to be anchored at the equator with her head to the 
west. When the captain walks from stem to stern, in what 
direction does he move? East is the obvious answer — an 



362 TRUTH AND ERROR 

answer which for the moment may pass without criticism. But 
now the anchor is heaved, and the vessel sails to the west 
with a velocity equal to that at which the captain walks. In 
what direction does he now move when he goes from stem to 
stern? You cannot say east, for the vessel is carrying him as 
fast towards the west as he walks to the east ; and you cannot 
say west, for the converse reason. In respect to surrounding 
space he is stationary; though to all on board the ship he 
seems to be moving. But now are we quite sure of this con- 
clusion?" 

Then he goes on to discuss the motions of molar 
bodies on the surface of the earth as related to the 
rotation of the earth on its axis, the revolution of 
the earth about the sun, and the revolution of the 
solar system about some point in the heavens lying- 
in the direction of Hercules, but he neglects the 
molecular motion within the molar body itself. In 
this discussion he is evidently under misapprehen- 
sion, which has already been explained and the 
certitude demonstrated. This certitude is that the 
acceleration of a body in its proper motion is deflec- 
tion of its particles. Thus, when a ship is moving 
in one direction at a certain rate, and the captain 
is walking from stem to stern at the same rate, his 
body is deflected by the ship as molar motion in one 
direction and by motility in the opposite direction ; 
that is, there is a double system of deflection of the 
particles of his body that compensate one another. 
The whole subject is thus explained as a double 
deflection, and all the mystery is solved. 

Later in the section Spencer says : 

"Another insuperable difficulty presents itself when we con- 
template the transfer of Motion. Habit blinds us to the 
marvelousness of this phenomenon. Familiar with the fact 
from childhood, we see nothing remarkable in the ability of a 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 363 

moving thing to generate movement in a thing that is station- 
ary. It is, however, impossible to understand it. In what 
respect does a body after impact differ from itself before 
impact? What is this added to it which does not sensibly 
affect any of its properties and yet enables it to traverse 
space? Here is an object at rest, and here is the same object 
moving. In the one state it has no tendency to change its 
place ; but in the other it is obliged at each instant to assume a 
new position. What is it which will for ever go on producing 
this effect without being exhausted? and how does it dwell in 
the object? The motion you say has been communicated. But 
how? — What has been communicated? The striking body has 
not transferred a thing to the body struck ; and it is equally 
out of the question to say that it has transferred an attiibute. 
What then has it transferred?" 

How simple the explanation! Motion as speed 
cannot be transferred, but motion as path may be 
deflected. 

Then he goes on to demonstrate the absurdities of 
transferring motion as speed from one body to 
another, and he finally says : 

"Thus neither when considered in connection with Space, nor 
when considered in connection with Matter, nor when con- 
sidered in connection with Rest, do we find that Motion is truly 
cognizable. All efforts to understand its essential nature do 
but bring us to alternative impossibilities of thought. ' ' 

In this argument he assumes that the transference 
of motion is the transfer of speed, but we have 
demonstrated that the transference of motion is only 
the transfer of direction by change in the paths of 
each, which is simple and can be understood by a 
boy. But the transfer of motion as speed leads to 
curious and contradictory conclusions, some of 
which Spencer develops. Here he is reasoning 
about a fallacy, something which does not exist, and 
something which is not only unknown, but unknow- 



364 TRUTH AND ERROR 

able, as he affirms. In all of part first of the u First 
Principles, ' ' wherever he discusses scientific subjects, 
he deals with fallacies and assumes non-existent 
things borrowed from the history of metaphysical 
opinion, all involving contradictions, and as no 
explanation of them can be given, assumes that 
they are unknowable ; still he affirms that they are 
known as something relative which he explains as 
something known in a symbolic manner. Now, 
these fallacies are all represented in literature, and 
have words by which they are known, but they are 
symbols of fallacies when improper meanings are 
given to them, but symbols of certitudes when 
proper meanings are implied. In all the history of 
metaphysic I know of no better illustrations of 
reasoning about fallacies than are here found in this 
first part, for the propositions are stated with singular 
clearness; they are never presented in obscure 
rhetoric, nor are they enforced by an appeal to moral 
sanctions. 

Spencer is right. The doctrine that motion as 
speed can be transferred from one particle to 
another is incomprehensible, or, to use his language, 
is unknowable, or, to use my language, it is absurd. 
We must not believe incomprehensible, unknowable, 
or absurd things. Since the days of Euclid, we are 
accustomed to the doctrine of rednctio ad absurdum 
in scientific logic. If we can reduce a proposition 
to absurdity we reject it. 

Spencer goes on in the same chapter to a con- 
sideration of force. He says: 

"On lifting a chair, the force exerted we regard as equal to 
that antagonistic force called the weight of the chair ; and we 
cannot think of these as equal without thinking of them as like 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 365 

in kind ; since equality is conceivable only between things that 
are connatural. The axiom that action and reaction are equal 
and in opposite directions, commonly exemplified by this very 
instance of muscular effort versus weight, cannot be mentally 
realized on any other condition. Yet, contrariwise, it is 
incredible that the force as existing in the chair really 
resembles the force as present to our minds. It scarcely needs 
to point out that the weight of the chair produces in us various 
feelings according as we support it by a single finger, or the 
whole hand, or the leg ; and hence to argue that as it cannot 
be like all these sensations there is no reason to believe it like 
any. It suffices to remark that since the force as known to us 
is an affection of consciousness, we cannot conceive the force 
existing in the chair under the same form without endowing 
the chair with consciousness. So that it is absurd to think of 
Force as in itself like our sensation of it, and yet necessary so 
to think of it if we realize it in consciousness at all. ' ' 

The force in the chair is molecular force ; the force 
in the arm is vital force, partly transmuted into 
motility, and in the act of lifting the chair molecular 
force is transmuted into molar force; force in the 
chair is one mode of force, and in the arm another 
mode of force ; but they are equal, and action and 
reaction take place, producing effects in opposite 
directions. The chair moves up, and the man and the 
earth move down. Of the force in the arm the man 
is conscious; of the force in the chair he is cognizant, 
that is, it is learned by combined judgments through 
inference. But Spencer has never analyzed judg- 
ment; he does not distinguish between conscious- 
ness and inference, sometimes using consciousness in 
the sense in which science must use it, but oftener 
using it in the sense of cognition, and always con- 
founding the two meanings, he rests under the fal- 
lacy of the double meaning in consciousness, and 
reifies it as cognition itself. But the illusion which 



$66 TRUTH AND ERROR 

especially concerns us here inheres in his notion of 
force. With him force is the ultimate property into 
which all other properties are resolved, for he seems 
to resolve kind into force, but of this I am not sure ; 
plainly, he resolves extension into force, by attempt- 
ing to show that our knowledge of extension is 
derived from force, not seeing that there can be 
no knowledge of force without a knowledge of 
form — that the two are indissoluble properties. 

Spencer is supposed to be the philosopher of evo- 
lution, and that is his grand theme, but he resolves 
change into force, not seeing that there can be no 
change without force, and no force without change. 
He seems to resolve judgment under the term con- 
sciousness, or under the term mind, into force, 
though his doctrine on this subject is obscure ; but 
with great emphasis and great reiteration, he denies 
that judgment as mind or consciousness or cogni- 
tion can be rendered in terms of motion. In this 
respect he is sound. With him motion is derived 
from force, not force from motion, and from this 
force he derives change and persistence ; the absolute 
of change he explains as persistence of force. Then 
he derives extension from force, and vaguely derives 
kind from force, and leaves force standing as the 
substrate of the substrate — the substrate of that 
which we call matter or substance. Then he argues 
that extension as a reality must be resolved into 
void space, and he affirms, without attempting to 
demonstrate it, that time, as persistence and change, 
must be resolved into void time, so that with three 
fallacious entities — void space, void time, and the 
resolution of all of the attributes of substance into 
void force — he has three nothings, three voids, 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 367 

three illusions, with which he deals in the first part 
of his book; and reasoning about these illusions he 
comes to the conclusion that they are unknowable, 
but that they are also known in a symbolic manner, 
and how known in a symbolic manner we have 
already shown — that it consists in using terms in an 
illegitimate manner. 

It is a dangerous doctrine to claim that we know 
something because we can talk about it, for we can 
talk about fallacies and hypotheses as well as about 
certitudes. Fallacies coined into words or coined 
into concepts are still fallacies. 

In the third chapter of the second part, beginning 
with the 46th section, Spencer says : 

"That sceptical state of mind which the criticisms of Philos- 
ophy usually produce, is, in great measure, caused by the misin- 
terpretation of words. A sense of universal illusion ordinarily 
follows the reading of metaphysics ; and is strong in proportion 
as the argument has appeared conclusive. This sense of univer- 
sal illusion would probably never have arisen, had the terms used 
been always rightly construed. Unfortunately, these terms 
have by association acquired meanings that are quite different 
from those given to them in philosophical discussions ; and the 
ordinary meanings being unavoidably suggested, there results 
more or less of that dreamlike idealism which is so incongruous 
without instinctive convictions. The word phenomenon and 
its equivalent word appearance, are in great part to blame for 
this. In ordinary speech, these are uniformly employed in 
reference to visual perceptions. Habit, almost, if not quite, 
disables us from thinking of appearance except as something 
seen ; and though phenomenon has a more generalized mean- 
ing, yet we cannot rid it of associations with apearance, which 
is its verbal equivalent. When, therefore, Philosophy proves 
that our knowledge of the external world can be but phenom- 
enal — when it concludes that the things of which we are con- 
scious are appearances ; it inevitably arouses in us the notion 
of an illusiveness like that to which our visual perceptions are 



368 TRUTH AND ERROR 

so liable in comparison with our tactual perceptions. Good 
pictures show us that the aspects of things may be very nearly 
simulated by colors on canvas. The looking-glass still more 
distinctly proves how deceptive is sight when unverified by 
touch. And the frequent cases in which we misinterpret the 
impressions made on our eyes, and think we see something 
which we do not see, further shake our faith in vision. So that 
the implication of uncertainty has infected the very word 
appearance. Hence, Philosophy, by giving it an extended 
meaning, leads us to think of all our senses as deceiving us in 
the same way that the eyes do ; and so makes us feel ourselves 
floating in a world of phantasms. Had phenomenon and 
appearance no such misleading associations, little, if any, of 
this mental confusion would result. Or did we in place of 
them use the term effect, which is equally applicable to all 
.impressions produced on consciousness through any of the 
senses, and which carries with it in thought the necessary 
correlative cause, with which it is equally real, we should be in 
little danger of falling into the insanities of idealism." 

Here the confusion which arises from fallacy, 
together with the contradictions involved, are fit- 
tingly set forth; but our philosopher accepts the 
fallacies and indorses the contradictions, and finally 
speculates with the difference in meaning between the 
terms phenomenon and appearance, and he adopts 
the philosophy of noumenon and phenomenon, and 
makes the noumenon to stand for the thing in itself 
the occult force, which he supposes to be void 
substance and void motion. While Spencer reasons 
about nonentities or fallacies in his first part, he 
sets forth many important principles in the second 
part, but they are all more or less vitiated by 
fallacies. 

How shall we rid ourselves of these fallacies? 
There is one simple rule. All contradictory con- 
cepts must be examined to discover the judgments 
that lead to contradictions, when correct reasoning 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 369 

will eliminate the incongruous. We may always 
know that concepts are incongruous or contradictory 
when they lead to a belief in the unknowable. 
Belief in the unknowable is pessimism about reason 
and is an evidence of fallacy. Fallacies can be eradi- 
cated only by a thorough examination of the con- 
cepts involved. The final fallacy on which the 
philosophy of the contradictory rests can be cor- 
rected only by systematic verification of the ele- 
mentary judgments of which it is composed, and 
thus by eliminating the errors. 
In the 50th section, Spencer says: 

" It is a truism to say that the nature of this undecomposable 
element of our knowledge is inscrutable. If, to use an 
algebraic illustration, we represent Matter, Motion, and Force, 
by the symbols, x, y, and z; then, we may ascertain the values 
of x and y in terms of z; but the value of z can never be found : 
z is the unknown quantity which must forever remain 
unknown ; for the obvious reason that there is nothing in which 
its value can be expressed. It is within the possible reach of 
our intelligence to go on simplifying the equations of all phenom- 
ena, until the complex symbols which formulate them are 
reduced to certain functions of this ultimate symbol ; but when 
we have done this, we have reached that limit which eternally 
divides science from nescience." 

But his letters stand for fallacies ; the certitudes 
should be represented by A, B } and C, then C, 
should be resolved into B, and B into A, as one of 
the known concomitants of matter. 

Bear with me in the reiteration of a fundamental 
illustration. A and B are particles that collide 
because they have incident paths. When they 
collide action and reaction are instantaneous and 
equal, and no speed is lost in either, but when we con- 
sider the antecedent and the consequent as cause and 



370 TRUTH AND ERROR 

effect, we consider the angle of incidence and com- 
pare it with the angle of reflection, and find them 
equal. If the angle of incidence is 90 degrees, the 
angle of reflection is 90 degrees, and the particles 
return reversely by the paths in which they 
approached. If the angle of incidence is less than 
90 degrees, the angle of reflection is less than 90 
degrees. If the angle of incidence is one degree, the 
angle of deflection is but one degree. In all of these 
cases the force remains equal, and in all of these cases 
the effect remains equal to the cause, but the force 
cannot be said to be equal to the cause or to the effect, 
for the cause is angle of incidence, and the effect is 
angle of reflection. This simple explanation of the 
difference between causation and force is a complete 
refutation of all of Spencer's philosophy of the 
unknowable. It is also a complete refutation of the 
doctrine of the dissipation of motion, which he 
accepts and uses as fundamental to the explanation 
of evolution. 

This is an illusion which we must not neg- 
lect. When it is held that motion as speed can 
leap from one body to another, the doctrine of the 
dissipation of motion is invented. When the heated 
iron cools, it is supposed that the iron yields its 
motion as speed, and dissipates it into surrounding 
objects, and especially into the ether; it was not seen 
that the thermal motion in the body is transmuted 
into another mode of molecular motion still within the 
body, as exhibited in strength and rigidity. From 
this fallacy logical consequences are derived when 
it is held that the sun is dissipating its motion 
because it is a cooling body. For does not the 
motion of the sun as heat come through the ether to 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 371 

the earth, and to all other external bodies? Yes, but 
not as motion, but as cause. Path of motion, not 
speed of motion, is communicated. The different 
modes of heat and of light in the ether are not differ- 
ent modes of speed, but different modes of trajectory. 
Whether the sun can continue to shine is not a ques- 
tion of the dissipation of motion as speed, but a 
question of the transmutation of one form of motion, 
called heat, into another form of molecular motion 
in the body itself. If the conditions for transform- 
ing heat into another mode of motion are not favor- 
able to this transmutation, then the sun may still 
continue to shine and make the planets glad. 

Let me suggest, merely as an hypothesis, some 
reasons for believing that the sun will not go out. 
On the earth we discover four partially differentiated 
bodies: air, water, rocks, and the great central body. 
Geologists have established the theory that this 
great central body is in a trans-fluid condition, due 
to pressure, and that thus its heat cannot be trans- 
muted into structural motion. Now the sun is a 
much larger body than the earth, and for this reason 
the materials in its outer crust have high specific 
gravity, and by reason of this higher specific gravity 
the solid crust must always be thinner, and perhaps 
this thinner crust cannot be supported against the 
stresses and strains produced by the stellar motion 
of the sun, and the stresses and strains developed in 
the crust itself and coming from the molten nucleus. 
It may be that the sun's spots, changeable as they 
are, give evidence of the breaking down, remelting, 
and reforming of this thin and variable crust. 

I do not present this exposition as anything more 
than an hypothesis, but perhaps it may be considered 



37 2 TRUTH AND ERROR 

worthy of an examination by those better equipped 
for the investigation. If we are to accept the per- 
sistence of energy, we must accept the persistence 
of motion; if we are to accept the persistence of 
motion, we are compelled to accept the persistence 
of motion as speed in every particle. Much scien- 
tific speculation needs revision. 

We must now turn our attention to the fallacies 
of apprehension, which are derived from hallucina- 
tions, and which first become specters, and then in 
the stage of apprehension become phantasms. By 
contemplating hallucinations as phantasms, another 
stage in the development of delusion is produced. 
When we consider specters in action we consider 
phantasms. 

When we dream we often go abroad, and the 
specters of our dreams are engaged in activities. It 
is from this phenomenon that the primitive mind 
reaches the conclusion that our ghosts may leave the 
body. Primitive men realize in others, and believe 
of themselves, that the body remains quiescent in 
sleep, and to account for the actions of the specters 
of the dream they conclude that the ghost can leave 
the body. When this false judgment becomes 
habitual — i. e., that the property of conception or 
judgment can depart from the body and sustain an 
independent existence, without number, space, 
motion, and time, or in reciprocal terms, without 
kind, form, force, and causation — then the specters 
of dreams may have a separate existence away from 
the body, as shades, subtle forms, or occult person- 
ages. 

Among tribal men these occult personages usually 
leave the body by the portal of the nostrils, and 



FALLACIES OF APPREHENSION 373 

return to it by the same gateway. There is a vast 
amount of lore concerning ghosts and the circum- 
stances under which they leave the body. Stories of 
ghosts that leave when the body sleeps; stories of 
ghosts that leave when the person is absorbed in 
deep contemplation, and the ghost snatches the 
opportunity to make a journey by itself; stories 
when ghosts leave the body for the purpose of gain- 
ing information in distant parts; stories of ghosts 
that are sent on journeys by hypnotic suggestion ; 
stories of ghosts that have wended their way to a 
distant land on wings of magic, at the will of the 
intoxicated shaman ; and stories of ghosts that have 
permanently left the body and thus have produced 
insanity, are abundant in the folk-lore of super- 
stitious people. In the same manner the ghosts of 
others may come to us in our dreams, and be their 
cause. They may come to us in states of ecstasy, 
and make us perform many wonderful deeds ; they 
may come to us in hypnotism and become foreign 
tenants of the body to do their own sweet will; 
they may come to us in states of intoxication and 
perform antics in our bodies and revel in delight, for 
in insanity they take more permanent possession of 
the body, and our lives will be controlled by foreign 
residents. It is thus that the actions of men are 
attributed to ghosts — perhaps wise actions when they 
go out and return to us with information from the 
external world; perhaps foolish actions when they 
take possession of us while our ghosts are away. It 
is in this manner that many of the mysteries of 
existence are explained. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



FALLACIES OF REFLECTION 

Fallacies of reflection are fallacies of time and 
cause, and they may be classed as misreflections and 
myths. The misreflections are a fourth group of 
illusions and the myths a fourth group of delusions. 

Fallacies concerning time are analogous to those 
concerning space. Time is persistence and change. 
It is not blank time, it is a time of something that 
exists, not the time of something that does not 
exist. It is the time in which all existence persists 
and in which it changes. The seed is developed on 
the apple-tree. Its time is the period of its existence 
as a germ, but the germ itself was developed by the 
incorporation of molecules. The molecules existing 
as particles in the air were transformed into the 
seed, but the molecules persisted before the seed was 
formed. The persistence is eternal in the atom 
so far as we know, but it is changeable from its state 
in the air or the water into its state in the seed, so 
its persistence is partly taken up while in the seed 
state. The seed is planted and becomes a tree by 
addition of other particles from the air and the 
water, and the eternal persistence of all the particles 
is occupied for a period in the state of the tree. 
Now, the existence of the molecules in the air and 
the water, and their existence in the seed, and their 
existence in the tree, and finally their existence as 
water and air, when the tree is reduced to another 

374 



FALLACIES OF REFLECTION 375 

state by decay, is a permanent existence, while the 
temporary existence is in the seed and the tree. 

Before man knew that the seed was a continued 
existence of particles, and that the tree was a con- 
tinned existence of particles, it was supposed that 
the time of these existences was limited, and that 
there was a blank time. Out of this nothing, some- 
thing was created, and these creations were in 
continual change, which were called fluxes or becom- 
ings. The real nature of persistence not being under- 
stood there was assumed to be a persistence which was 
blank, and the blank was called time. But persist- 
ence, not being known, though called time, was 
held to be the thing-in-itself, which indeed it was in 
part, and it was called noumenon. When the noume- 
non was discovered, the idea of blank time was still 
retained and it was still noumenon, while the real 
persistence was called a phenomenon. Now it is 
apparent that this blank time is a fallacy. It was 
thus, as in this case, that all unknown things, when 
they came to be known, were transferred to the 
things which were called phenomena ; and the blank 
things were still called noumena. Thus noumenon 
was a word originally valid, an x in logical com- 
putation, whose value was to be determined; but 
ultimately it came to mean a something which could 
not be determined — not only an unknown but an 
unknowable thing, and a knowable thing was held to 
be only appearance and was called phenomenon. 

My horse is stolen, by whom I know not, and I 
say there is a thief, but as I do not know this thief 
I call him a noumenon. But the detectives capture 
him and he is sent to prison; now the thief 
becomes a phenomenon, for he is apparent — he 



376 TRUTH AND ERROR 

may be seen in the jail. Now, suppose that I had 
talked about this noumenon, when he was unknown, 
in a conglomeration of attributes — as an uncanny- 
man, as a vicious man seeking another that he may- 
devour him, as a man of seven heads and ten horns ; 
but now I find him only a poor misguided man with 
the vice of cleptomania or the greed for possession 
which made him a criminal, but without multiple 
heads or multiple horns. Having discovered my 
fallacy in this case I still retain the notion of 
existence of such a thing as I had imagined, and I 
continue to believe in it and still call it a noumenon. 
In the same manner every noumenon of metaphysics 
can be traced back to the original fallacy entertained 
by mankind and still supposed to exist as a reality 
in the universe. When all of these illusions are 
considered we have the world of occult noumena — 
the theater of idealism. 

Kant explained his occult space, not as a property 
of physical nature, but as a form of the mind, what- 
ever that may be. In the same manner his occult 
time was not an existence in physical nature, but also 
was a form of the mind. He had not the insight to dis- 
cover that such forms are fallacies, like the dome of 
the sky in the mind of an ignorant man; still, he 
had the logical integrity to see that such space 
and time are incongruous with a space of extension 
and position and a time of persistence and change, 
and he boldly followed his logic in formulating a set 
of antinomies, or contradictions, both of which he 
seems to have believed as valid. 

Kant himself was accustomed to speak of ideas as 
forms ; that is, to speak of one abstract concomitant 
in terms of another abstract concomitant. For 



FALLACIES OF REFLECTION 377 

science this habit is fatal. Tropes are good as 
poetry, but vicious as terms in propositions of logic. 
Systems of cosmology originate in this manner. In 
tribal society the earth is made polar from east to 
west. About this Occidental and Oriental pole a 
system of worlds is projected — a world of the east, 
a world of the west, and, at right angles to these, a 
world of the north and a world of the south, a world 
of the zenith, and a world of the nadir, with a mid- 
world which is a plane with sides and corners. All 
the lower tribes of mankind believe in such a world, 
and there are expressions used in civilized society 
which are survivals from this stage of belief. To 
primitive man these worlds are the realities of his 
cosmology, and he uses these supposed realities as 
nuclei for many concepts. For example, he formulates 
social laws as the laws of the east, the laws of the 
west, the laws of the north, the laws of the south, 
the laws of the zenith, and the laws of the nadir. 
Crosses, swastikas, and formulated statements are 
alike made to conform to this scheme. In some- 
what later culture, when a somewhat clearer con- 
cept of the midworld exists, and the east, west, 
north, and south have been explored, but the zenith 
and the nadir are yet unknown, there still remains a 
midworld, a heaven above and a hell beneath. Laws 
and principles are formulated as heavenly or hellish. 
The transformation of seven worlds into three con- 
stitutes one of the most interesting chapters in the 
history of human opinion. In the seven-world 
scheme, method of statement becomes a method of 
philosophy. This fact has abundant illustration. 
It is the primal vice of classification which was set 
forth in the chapter on classification. 



37§ TRUTH AND ERROR 

By a curious mode of expression often, perhaps 
universally, found in savage society, time is con- 
sidered to be four-cornered because we measure 
time in terms of space. We say the sun rises in the 
east and sets in the west, and that at midday it is in 
the zenith and at midnight it is supposed to be in 
the nadir. Some savages will tell you that time is 
four-cornered, others will tell you that time is 
round, but that there are four cardinal points of time. 
Four-cornered time is a firmly established notion 
among savage and barbaric tribes. Thus time is 
formulated as if it were space. Many modern 
physicists mythologize in this manner about motion, 
being unable to distinguish motion as an abstract 
property, because motion is formulated in terms of 
space and force in terms of parallelograms. 

Thus a scheme of expression becomes a scheme of 
reality. When a three- world scheme is substituted 
for the seven-world scheme, the four worlds are 
transformed into four substances, as earth, air, fire, 
and water. Hence the cardinal points of compass 
become the cardinal substances. The habit of 
relegating all animals, all plants, all properties, and 
all qualities to the seven worlds, is continued under 
the new scheme by making a something like a 
classification between properties and qualities, and 
transmuting the properties and qualities to sub- 
stances or attributes of substances and qualities, to 
world beings and attributes of world beings. 
Properties are grouped in fours because there are 
four horizontal corners of the world, and qualities 
are grouped in fours because there are four vertical 
corners of the world as evidenced by time. Thus 
a scheme of expression becomes a scheme of philos- 



FALLACIES OF REFLECTION 379 

ophy. Wet and dry, cold and hot, constitute a 
scheme of cardinal properties; earth, air, fire, and 
water, a scheme of cardinal substances; justice, 
prudence, temperance, and fortitude, a scheme of 
cardinal virtues. 

It is an error of this nature into which Kant fell 
when he considered space and time as forms of 
thought. The habit of expressing thought in terms 
of form led him to the conclusion that space and 
time, as disparate properties, are identical with 
thought as a succession of judgments, instead of 
being concomitant with thought. But more than this, 
it was the void form and the void space which Kant 
supposed to be forms which we are compelled to use 
as a priori elements of reason when we consider 
form and state. 

Fallacies of cause occur in every hour of waking 
life. We attribute effects to wrong causes. We 
are especially liable to this from the fact that both 
cause and effect are conditions, and causation is a 
change of condition from an antecedent to a con- 
sequent. The conditions of every causation are 
multifarious as we look at them in a regressus of 
causes or a progressus of effects, and as the mind of 
the individual can make but one judgment at a 
time, it may be that the one of the causes or effects 
which is considered, is in fact a trivial element in the 
causation, for in all our language we are accustomed 
to speak of one of the causes as the special cause, 
for it must be the special one in consideration. 

Forces are often processes in which a multitude 
of unseen objects produce a seen effect, as when 
many molecules of air strike upon a tree which 
bends before the blast, or when many raindrops, that 



380 TRUTH AND ERROR 

can scarcely be seen where they fall and are wholly 
unseen by the man who beholds the river, create 
a flood that endeluges a valley. 

Some instances of this kind produce fallacies that 
are widely entertained ; they are misreflections that 
substitute the effect for the cause. One illustration 
of this group of fallacies must suffice for us here. 
Some years ago there was published an interesting 
and well written book, the theme of which was the ori- 
gin of deserts, giving a pessimistic view of the world, 
in which it was represented that desert conditions 
are increasing, and that wide regions of country have 
already been laid waste as deserts, because mankind 
interferes with the operations of nature by destroy- 
ing the forests, and that if forests were restored 
rainfall would be increased. In this manner effect 
was taken for cause. 

The most subtle fallacy about causation consists 
in mistaking it for another property, either as force 
on the one hand or as thought on the other. 
Force, cause, and conception — or motion, space, and 
judgment — are disparate properties but concomitant 
in every particle and body of the universe. This has 
been the burthen of our theme from the chapter 
on essentials, in which it was affirmed, to the present 
one, and all our demonstrations have had this end in 
view. 

He who cannot clearly distinguish between ab- 
stract and concrete, or between body and property, 
is certain to fall into mysticism. Mill and Spencer 
in the late years, like Aristotle in ancient time, 
confounded causation with force or energy, while 
Kant and all the school of metaphysicians confound 
both cause and force with thought. 



FALLACIES OF REFLECTION 381 

Evolution is a succession of changes which are 
in time and require time for their accomplishment. 

The ancients believed and the tribes believe that 
kinds, forms, and forces come out of nothing and 
return to nothing. This is the primal fallacy of 
causation. Modern science has demonstrated that 
kinds, forms, and forces come from something else 
and vanish into something else. It is only today 
that this is universally accepted by scientific men, 
while even at the present time millions of those who 
inhabit the earth still believe in creation from 
nothing. We shall not attempt to recount the 
multitude of fallacies which have existed and which 
still linger in scientific circles. We have already set 
forth the one most important to our argument, that 
is, that motion is created by or comes out of some 
occult force which is not itself motion, and the 
other form in which motion is supposed to leap or 
creep, or in some other manner to be transferred 
from one body to another. An acrobatic motion is 
the last ghost of force. 

We now come to the second part of our chap- 
ter, the discussion of myths. Mythology is 
the history of ghosts. Ghosts are specters, and 
we have seen what strange acts they commit 
as phantasms, when they leave the body and 
travel abroad in the world and return again to 
the body, or when from abroad they enter the body 
to take possession of it in the absence of its owner. 
In savage society authority is wielded by the oldest 
man, who thus by superior age, natural or conven- 
tional, becomes the chief. In the same manner the 
dwellers in ghostland are ruled by tribes ; the pro- 



382 TRUTH AND ERROR 

genitor, prototype, or elder animal of the tribe is its 
chief. 

Now we are to consider what it is that ghosts have 
done — how they have acted in the theater of the 
universe. Strange to say, we find it well recorded, 
for ghosts have had more complete recognition than 
men in all ancient history. Ghosts, as a race, have 
passed through interesting stages of history. All 
changes are in time and require time to become 
discrete quantities of change that may be recognized. 

Hence it is that in the evolution of ghosts we 
have to consider their transmutation from one to 
another as it appears when we consider them 
separated by many centuries of time. We are 
unable to find the distinction in the race of ghosts, 
if we consider them yesterday and again today, or 
last year and again this year, or even last century 
and again this century; but when we consider 
them as they appear in the stages of culture which 
are designated as savagery, barbarism, monarchy, 
and democracy, we find discrete degrees of evolution. 

It is only in such considerations that planes of 
demarcation can be discovered. I shall therefore 
consider ghosts as they appear in savagery, barbar- 
ism, monarchy, and democracy, or to use more 
common terms, civilization and enlightenment. 

In savagery the ghosts are zoomorphic. All lower 
animals, stones, bodies of water, the sun, the moon, 
and all the stars are supposed to be animals. The 
universe is a universe of animals living in the seven 
regions. All of these animals have ghosts which can 
leave their bodies and journey through the world, 
and at will inhabit other bodies, when they find them 
vacated by their proper ghosts. It is thus that the 



FALLACIES OF REFLECTION 383 

primitive mythology is a theory of animal ghosts. 
What these ghosts can do in their proper bodies is 
easily seen, though it is very wonderful ; but what 
they do when they leave their proper bodies is 
mysterious or occult. 

To the savage, lower animals seem to have 
attributes and to perform deeds that are more 
wonderful than those of human beings. The ser- 
pent is swift without legs, the bird can revel where 
man cannot go — through void space with wings. 
The fish can inhabit the water and run with fins ; no 
human being can do this. The spider can spin a 
thread and travel on it; all that he has to do is to 
spin the thread from his own body and travel 
wherever he wills as it is unwound. The rivers are 
born of rain and roll into the sea which never 
increases. The winds are created by the breath of 
beasts or rise from under the wings of birds from 
nothing. The stars can fly like birds and shine like 
fire. So the savage man considers the molar bodies 
of the world, which are all animals like himself, to 
have many magical or occult attributes which are 
very wonderful. But the wonderful things which 
they do are not attributed to their bodies, but to 
their ghosts. The body of a man lies inert when 
he sleeps, but his ghost cannot sleep, it travels about 
the world when his body is at rest. The bodies of 
the rocks are inert, but when they sleep at night 
their ghosts shine in the heaven as the aurora 
borealis. If you strike one rock with another you 
can see its ghost as a spark of fire. When the clouds 
gather they are the ghosts of water; when angry 
they shine with lightning light, and when pleased 
the clouds shine as rainbows. These illustrations 



384 TRUTH AND ERROR 

will serve to show how thoroughly, in the notion of 
the savage, ghosts and bodies are differentiated. 

The universe being considered as bodies and 
ghosts, and the bodies being considered as inert and 
the ghosts as active principles, we have the fundamen- 
tal theory of savage reasoning. We can do nothing 
except as it is done by our ghosts. We cannot cause 
anything to be done by others except by controlling 
their ghosts. Words cause other human beings to 
do things, and their words cause lis to act. The 
words of the mother cause action in the babe ; the 
voice of the babe causes the mother to act. The 
voice of the bird brings its mate to its side, or the 
voice of its mate takes the bird to its side. The 
primeval concept of causation is the notion that 
words produce effects, and that effects are caused by 
words. The bird flies to its mate ; the flying of the 
bird is considered the action of the bird, but when it 
flies in response to the call of its mate the call 
seems to be the cause of its flight. It is the special 
cause ; primitive man has no insight into the many 
causes that are involved. It is from this primeval 
concept of cause as some special condition, that is 
developed through the ages, when in a higher 
civilization we consider the special cause as if it was 
the total cause. Now mythology, having ghosts as 
actors, secures their action by causes, and explains 
the phenomena of the universe as the activities of 
ghosts acting through body by verbal causation. 
In savagery words are the ordinary observable 
causes and constitute the primal cause. 

We do not know the languages of the other 
animals, we can speak to them only through signs 
or symbols. Great is that man who can talk to 



FALLACIES OF REFLECTION 385 

ghosts. The symbol which he uses is called a 
mystery. In the Ute language it ispofoint; in the 
Siouan language it is wakanda; in the Algonquian 
it is manito. All tribal languages have a word 
which signifies the mystery, which can be used as a 
symbol to cause the action of ghosts. The concept 
is born in savagery of a mysterious cause which 
has power over ghosts, which again have powers 
over bodies, and so the universe is a realm of bodies, 
ghosts, and mysteries, or unknown tongues. 

The mystery, called by various names among 
American tribes, is usually translated "medicine, " for 
the early missionaries found the people appealing to 
the mystery to heal disease, for diseases are supposed 
to be ghosts of animals. As the mystery is some- 
thing which must act as a word, it must be something 
which will suggest to the ghost that which is wanted. 
Hence there arises the doctrine of signatures, which 
means among the tribesmen much more than the 
signatures of medicines, by which we are to learn 
what medicines are good for diseases — it primarily 
means what signatures can be made to convey our 
commands to ghosts. As ghosts are all animals in 
savagery, how can we talk to the ghosts of animals? 
This leads in savagery to the symbols which con- 
stitute the paraphernalia of altars. In savagery 
every object on the altar is a sign to ghosts of what 
men wish when they perform ceremonies. They 
pray to the ghosts for rain, and to make sure that 
the ghosts will understand what they mean, they 
refer them to cloud symbols. When they pray for 
corn they place ears of corn upon the altar. When 
they pray that the corn shall ripen and become hard 
they place crystals of quartz upon the altar. In 



386 TRUTH AND ERROR 

various ways signatures are used by the priests in 
invoking the aid of ghosts. Those persons who 
have power over ghosts are medicine men or priests, 
and attain great influence and sometimes are greatly 
feared. If they use their power for evil, they are 
wizards and are killed. If they use their power for 
good, they may be made chiefs. 

Primarily the name given to a body designates 
some property of that body. After a time the name 
itself becomes the property of the body, and finally 
the name becomes a mythical body. These stages 
in the development of words can be discovered in 
many of the languages of America, doubtless in 
them all ; it is the transmutation which Max Miiller 
calls a disease of language. 

In the second stage of culture, called barbarism, 
animals have been domesticated and thus by more 
intimate acquaintance with animals the lower 
animals are dethroned and human animals are 
exalted. All animals and other molar beings which 
are supposed to be bodies movable by human beings, 
are still held to have ghosts, but their rulers are 
ghosts of human beings and the great phenomena of 
nature are personified as human beings; the sun, 
moon, and stars are exalted in this manner; the 
seas, the rivers and the mountains are likewise 
personified. All the most important phenomena of 
the universe as they are known to man are personi- 
fied. The rising and the setting of the sun, or the 
dawning and the gloaming, are personified as well 
as the sun itself. The rainbow also is personified. 
Fire is personified. The ghosts are no less multi- 
tudinous, but some are exalted above the others, and 
those promoted in this manner are deities of higher 



FALLACIES OF REFLECTION 387 

rank. To these deities are attributed the important 
events of the worlds. But there are many minor 
ghosts; the worlds are full of them, born of the 
ages. 

Now, in barbarism ghosts are still the actors in 
the worlds and they are caused to act by signs, and 
tribesmen still continue to ransack the earth for 
signatures. Men still hold in love or fear those who 
have the lore of ghost science. The chiefs or head 
men or ancestors of the ghosts are greatly revered 
as gods, and common folk ghosts take part in the 
affairs of the worlds, and mythology is the history of 
their doings. These folk-talks elaborately portray 
the life of men and ghosts and the potency of signs. 

The ceremonies of supplication which still con- 
tinue from savagery, are believed to have still more 
potency by reason of the sacrifices that have become 
more and more important in the estimation of the 
people as time has advanced. In savagery the 
ceremonials are chiefly terpsichorean : music and 
dancing were the agencies by which the attention 
of the ghosts was obtained. While in savagery the 
pouring of oblations and the presentation of the 
corn were signs of what was desired, and all the 
paraphernalia of the altar that represented the 
thing for which men prayed were merely significant 
of the things men wanted, in this higher stage men 
have come to believe that the good things which 
men want are the good things which the ghosts want, 
only they want the ghosts of the good things, not 
their bodies. So the altar of signatures gradually 
becomes the altar of sacrifice, Hecatombs of beeves, 
bottles of wine, all the first fruits of the harvest, 
everything the ghost desires, even human beings, 



388 TRUTH AND ERROR 

may be sacrificed upon the altar. If after this state- 
ment my reader will consult the Odyssey he will there 
find the most vivid portrayal of barbaric philosophy 
that has been preserved to us from antiquity. 

In despotism, or the third stage of social organiza- 
tion, ghosts are still more exalted, in that the 
psychic characteristics of men are personified. 
Certain of the gods of barbarism gradually become 
representatives of certain psychic characteristics, and 
we have the stage of psychotheism, and there is a 
god of War, a god of Love, a god of Hate, a god 
of Commerce, and many other major deities; but 
there is a second class of deities representing what 
are supposed to be secondary attributes of human 
and divine ghosts. It is in this stage that we 
observe the transmutation of words into gods. The 
concepts of which words as signs are personified, 
as Max Miiller has abundantly shown. "In the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. " A 
development of cosmology which begins late in bar- 
barism is more thoroughly carried out. The cardinal 
worlds are wholly thrown out of mythology and the 
midworld has a world above or a heaven, and a world 
below or a hell. The midworld becomes the sole 
theater for the development of ghosts by birth. 
These ghosts, born in the midworld of human beings, 
are the ghosts of the external world which ofttimes 
visit the earth. The three worlds of the stage of 
despotism constitute the fundamental schematism of 
the philosophy of the period. Institutions are of 
heaven or of hell, opinions are of heaven or of hell, 
and in all philosophy the schematism prevails. But 
in this midworld the ghosts of heaven and the 
ghosts of hell take part with the embodied ghosts 



FALLACIES OF REFLECTION 389 

of men in all of the affairs of the world. Every- 
where there is a ruler, a despot — a commander-in- 
chief of the hosts of heaven and the hosts of hell ; 
while on earth in the midworld it becomes the 
ambition of every despot or emperor to become the 
sole ruler. The ghosts born on earth depart to the 
upper or the lower regions, where they are forever 
separated by an impassable barrier, and life on earth 
is but a probation in which ghosts are selected for 
the other world ; hence the chief purpose of life in 
the body is attained by securing a happy life in 
ghostland. 

During all this stage in mythology the ghost-gods 
are affected by psychological considerations. The 
supreme being in every religion of despotism is 
especially influenced by the opinions of his followers. 
Their opinions of the supreme being must be sound, 
and worship is by faith in spirit and in truth. Thus 
worship is fiducial. The supreme being is supposed 
to take delight in the opinions of his followers 
and in the expression of those opinions as formulated 
in creed and especially as formulated in ceremony. 
This mythical stage gives rise to a vast body of 
folk-lore, which is distinguished from mythology 
proper by the belief in a ghostly, supreme being. 
The midworld is still the theater of ghosts who come 
from the world above and the world below and 
sometimes dwell for a time in this world and take 
part in the affairs of men. These ghosts are 
especially amenable to deeds of necromancy, the 
more refined form in which the doctrine of signatures 
is held. If my reader will carefully study Tasso in 
"Jerusalem Delivered," he will there find recorded 
one of the best accounts extant of the necromancy 



39° TRUTH AND ERROR 

of the despotic age. The publications of the various 
folk-lore societies of the world are rapidly putting 
these superstitions on record. 

I shall refrain from discussing the fourth stage of 
ghost-lore. In very modern times it has assumed a 
special phase which is called spiritism, and attendant 
upon the theory of spiritism there is developed a 
claim for a scientific explanation of spiritism in the 
theory of telepathy, which I cannot wholly overlook 
and do not wish to ignore, but on that phase which 
is specially represented in religion I purposely 
remain silent, lest I should antagonize, with my own 
opinions, the views of others about religion, and thus 
enter a field of theological disputation. Yet without 
expressing personal opinions about the evolution of 
religion, which I have elsewhere done, I shall content 
myself with only one paragraph upon the subject. 

From the doctrine of signatures there has grown 
the science of modern surgery and medicine. I do 
not despise the early efforts of mankind to relieve 
their sufferings, even though they entertained many 
fallacies; but I rejoice in the outcome of this effort 
as it is exhibited in modern medicine. Astrology 
was necromancy at one time, but has become astron- 
omy in modern times, and I look upon the efforts 
which were made in former times by astrologists as 
the planting of the germs of the celestial science. 
So I look upon mythology with no feelings of hatred, 
for it seems to me to have made great strides in the 
science of religion or ethics, out of which shall come 
a purified science of God, Immortality, and Free- 
dom. 



CHAPTER XXIV 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 



Fallacies of ideation constitute a fifth grade, which 
are illusions and delusions. In the order heretofore 
followed, we shall first speak of illusions, and then 
of delusions. 

The Schoolmen speculated much on the nature of 
kinds, and finally reached the conclusion that that 
which makes a thing- a kind is its essence, i. e., that 
which is essential to its existence as a kind, like 
others of its kind, but different from other kinds. 
All of this is quite true, but it adds nothing to knowl- 
edge, except that it might be given as a definition of 
a word. For a long time definitions were consid- 
ered very good explanations. 

When chemistry was yet alchemy, attempts often 
were made to discover the essence of things, and, 
in particular, it was a favorite method to extract 
kinds, and these extracts were called essences. So 
the kind or essence of a thing discovered in this 
manner was supposed to be its essential quality, as 
this term was then used. We have a record of this 
superstition, as it existed in the days of alchemy, in 
the extracts of the apothecary shop, which are often 
called essences. Rose-water was the essential 
extract of the rose, violet- water of the violet, and 
men were pleased with the idea that they could 
make of that which constitutes a thing or kind a 
decoction for a lady's dressing table. 

391 



392 TRUTH AND ERROR 

Fallacious theories of kind have high antiquity. 
It has already been set forth that a classification of 
properties and qualities is made in tribal society by 
a schematization of worlds. Not only were molar 
bodies, which were supposed to be animate, classi- 
fied in this manner into seven categories, but all 
attributes of bodies were in like manner classified. 
We have already seen how space properties gave rise 
to a cosmology of seven regions. We have also seen 
how motion was explained as the self-activity of 
molar bodies, and that the heavenly bodies, which 
were supposed to be molar bodies, are in motion by 
appointed paths established by conflict in war, and 
given spacial or world directions, and that force was 
considered as will and the cause of motion. 

We also have seen the manner in which time was 
considered as an attribute of space. We likewise 
have seen the development of the seven worlds into 
three, as the midworld, the zenith, and the nadir 
worlds. 

Here we must pause for a time to explain some- 
thing more of the nature of this transmutation. 
The change developed in later barbarism and earlier 
civilization was wrought by the increase of geo- 
graphical knowledge. During this period there grad- 
ually was developed a notion of the land, or mid- 
world, as a plane from which mountains and hills 
stand in relief, surrounded by the sea. Thales 
gives us such an account, as do many others. All 
the mythology of the time assumes the existence of 
the midworld as an island surrounded by an ocean. 
During the same epoch in human culture the unseen 
atmosphere was discovered. As the cardinal worlds 
were gradually abandoned, these properties and 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 393 

qualities of bodies that had previously been classi- 
fied in the world scheme, came to be classified by a 
very natural change, as attributes of molar bodies. 
The schematization still remained fourfold, but 
molar bodies were considered as kinds, composed of 
four occult substances — earth, air, fire, and water. 
Thus, the four regions were transmuted into the four 
substances. Greek philosophy began with this 
theory, and there is abundant evidence that other 
races entertained the same doctrine. 

Thus, the most ancient philosophy of civilization 
started with a theory of three worlds and four sub- 
stances. We must now rapidly trace its develop- 
ment through five stages, during a period of more 
than twenty centuries, as it is revealed to us in the 
history of metaphysic as distinguished from science. 

We must consider a little further the misunder- 
standings of ideation. Every man for himself 
verifies the current judgments which he makes in 
relation to practical affairs. If our judgments were 
not verified until after they are. acted on, the race 
would be overwhelmed by disaster. We have 
already seen that erroneous judgments vie in multi- 
plicity with valid judgments. If a man should act 
on erroneous judgments, they would lead him into 
such mistakes that, almost every hour in the day, he 
would perform some act causing irreparable mis- 
chief. The food which he selects must be properly 
chosen, but the many things which he might select 
for food, which are injurious, or even deadly, out- 
number the articles which should constitute his 
proper food. The snares, the pitfalls, the precipices, 
the floods, which beset his path, are so many that 
his way must carefully be chosen. The forces which 



394 TRUTH AND ERROR 

are encountered, as men, beasts, and natural powers, 
are so many that he must constantly avoid antago- 
nisms. Life is a perpetual exercise of choice. 
Judgments that are made must be verified in prac- 
tical affairs, lest the race should become extinct. 
So, in the making of our judgments, we form a habit 
of verifying them before we proceed to act. 

The immediate judgments of practical life must be 
verified, but the judgments which we make about 
future events may be postponed, and, practically, 
they are postponed in tribal society. But men come 
at last to seek for the verification of judgments 
which are more and more remotely practical, for 
they also are found to involve ultimate welfare. 
Then science is born, for science is knowledge, or 
verified judgments. When science is born, civiliza- 
tion begins. If judgments are incongruous, some- 
where there must be error. This is the method of 
discovering error, which is habitual or intuitive in 
mankind, developed from infancy in the individual, 
and developed in the race from generation to gener- 
ation, through the whole period of animate existence. 
It is the most profound intuition of the human mind. 

With civilization there springs up a philosophy of 
monism, which is a philosophy of the error involved 
in judgments that are incongruous. The key to the 
meaning of that which we call ancient philosophy is 
found in the attempt to discover a unifying principle. 

Through the centuries this has been the quest of 
wise men. The seemingly multitudinous properties 
and qualities of body must be reduced to some 
unifying principle. As the individual first guesses 
and then verifies, as already set forth in the chapters 
on intellection, so the race, at one time and another, 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 395 

guesses, chooses, selects some one property to which 
all other properties may be reduced as the unifying 
principle. 

This quest started at the beginning of civiliza- 
tion, when four substances, earth, air, fire, and 
water, were held to be the elements of which all 
bodies are composed. Civilization inherited a con- 
troversy from barbarism about these substances. 
The substances themselves were derived from the 
cardinal points, and the brotherhoods of the tribe 
were organized to represent these cardinal points. 
Each brotherhood claimed for itself an origin in the 
cardinal point from which it was named, and hence 
there was a perennial controversy between the 
brotherhoods as to the most noble or honorable of 
these origins. Now, in tribal society, the most noble 
or honorable is the eldest, for that is the method of 
expressing nobler ; elder and nobler are synonymous, 
for the elder has dominion in tribal society. In the 
beginning of Greek philosophy, the o. PX n , the first, 
held dominion, and was hence the most honorable. 
The controversies about the most honorable of the 
points of the compass, the one which should hold 
dominion, the one which was the first, held over into 
the stage when the cardinal points were considered 
as substances, and hence the Greeks inherited the 
controversy about the first, or a PX r, } of the ele- 
ments. Now, another method of expressing this 
idea is that the first is the grandfather, so that it is 
customary in tribal society to speak of the chief as 
the grandfather. The totemic head of the tribe is 
often called the grandfather, as is also the totemic 
head who is the first of the tribe, or the one from 
which all the other members are derived. These 



396 TRUTH AND ERROR 

doctrines are thoroughly ingrained in the habits of 
thought and the methods of expression current in 
tribal society, and inherited by national society. 
Hence, we find, in the study of Greek philosophy, 
which primarily is cosmology, the first, or apxv , of the 
elements still to be the subject of dispute, and the 
first is taken as the one from which all others are 
derived, and hence to have dominion, and so the 
most honorable. 

At last, there arose a philosopher who cleared his 
imagination of the fallacies of kinds, as earth, air, 
fire, and water, and made the bold hypothesis that 
all things are ultimately founded, not on kind, but 
on its reciprocal, number, for Pythagoras was a m athe- 
matician. Then began the theories of reified abstrac- 
tions, the theories by which the properties of bodies 
are unified as a foundation for monistic philosophy. 

There is so much of truth in the philosophy of 
Pythagoras, that when we consider the universe as 
composed of properties that can be measured, and 
that by measure all properties are reduced to num- 
ber, then all properties can be considered as number. 
Counting on the human abacus had now been devel- 
oped into the science of reasoning by conventional 
numbers, and, having discovered that sound is a 
numerical relation of vibrations of the air, and carry- 
ing his magical philosophy into all his ways and 
thoughts, but not clearly understanding the nature 
of measure itself, that it is the rendering of one 
property into the terms of another, until all of the 
properties are reduced to number, he conceived the 
doctrine that the universe is a world of numbers ; and 
so it is, but it is much more than a world of num- 
bers, as we have abundantly seen. 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 397 

Pythagoras is said to have taught this doctrine. 
This is not known from records left by himself, but 
mainly from records which come from his immediate 
successors. The literature of the Pythagorean phi- 
losophy is meager, yet, from the little that remains, 
it seems to have been a theory of the origin of all 
other properties from number. 

In mathematics, the science of verification is space 
reduced to number ; motion is reduced to space, and 
then to number; and, finally, time is reduced to 
motion, and motion to space, and space to number; 
and all of these conventional reductions are accom- 
plished by the device of measure. But, in the doc- 
trine of Pythagoras, number seems to have been held 
as the substrate of properties. It is the patriarch of 
the illusions of metaphysical philosophy ; its vener- 
able form is gray with the mystical shadows of 
twenty-five centuries. This may be denominated the 
fallacy of Pythagoras. 

Plato taught that form is the substrate of all 
properties. This he did with such literary skill that 
he held the judgment of mankind for many cen- 
turies. He not only taught that form is the substrate 
of physical properties, but also of thought. To him 
thoughts were forms given off by objects floating in 
the empyrean and taken into the mind, and his 
exposition of this doctrine transferred the word idea 
from the realm of space to the realm of mind. A 
monument to this fallacy still exists in the use of the 
term idea for a notion in every modern language of 
civilization. This may be denominated the fallacy 
of Plato. 

Aristotle rejected the Pythagorean and Platonic 
fallacy, but entertained one of his own. He reified 



39^ TRUTH AND ERROR 

energy or force, which is derived from motion, and 
taught that this energy is the substrate of all proper- 
ties. Now, while this seems to have been his doc- 
trine, yet it must be remembered that Aristotle was 
a careless writer, heedless of the niceties of expres- 
sion, and unconscious of the necessity for using 
scientific accuracy in terms. It seems possible to 
refer to Aristotle as an authority for many of the 
fallacies which have been entertained in metaphysic, 
and philosophers usually reverence him as the 
Master. If I were called on to point out the funda- 
mental doctrine of Aristotle, I should cite his theory 
of energy, so I call this the fallacy of Aristotle. As 
his exposition of the subject is not very lucid, and as 
men may honestly controvert any statement made of 
his doctrine, it seems better to look for another 
master of this doctrine. In Spencer, we have a 
philosopher who rivals Plato in literary skill. In 
Spencer's "First Principles," where he lays the 
foundation of his philosophy, he sets forth the doc- 
trine in no uncertain terms. Motion is derived from 
force, extension also is derived from force, and, 
finally, all of the properties are held to have force as 
their substrate. If the reader will consult Spen- 
cer's "First Principles," part n, chapter in, he 
will there discover his method of explaining proper- 
ties. The chapter is entitled, "Space, Time, Matter, 
Motion, and Force." He not only derives all the 
properties, but all bodies, from force, and then 
describes force as something unknown and unknow- 
able ; so, in the name of science, he meets the meta- 
physician on his own ground, and sets forth his 
doctrines with a deftness and simplicity with which 
the dealer in mystery cannot vie. Spencer not only 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 399 

entertains the fallacy that properties are derived from 
an unknown and unknowable force, but he makes 
force the substrate of all relations, and then affirms 
that we know only of relations, and that their substrate 
is the unknowable; but still more, he accepts the 
Kantian illusions of a void space and a void time. 

Then, time was held to be the unifying 1 principle 
of all properties and bodies. This reification was 
designated by the term being, taking the participle of 
the asserting word to be, but using it in its secondary 
sense as signifying to exist. My reading does not 
furnish me with the knowledge necessary to say who 
first clearly propounded this doctrine, but it was 
almost universally entertained by scholastic meta- 
physicians. Let us, then, denominate this the 
scholastic fallacy. 

It appears that Plato and Aristotle have been 
recorded more generously than other philoso- 
phers of Grecian history. The authority which they 
wielded seems not to have permitted the revival of 
the Pythagorean fallacy which they successfully dis- 
pelled, while the Aristotelian fallacy had no ex- 
tensive following until modern times, when, under 
the lead of Spencer, the great modern master, it has 
been extensively taught. 

But, of all these fallacies, that of the reification of 
time has, perhaps, had the greatest following; it is 
the philosophy of Ontology. It has one variety 
which almost equals in importance Ontology itself. 
This variety of the species is the metaphysic of 
becoming, or, as it is sometimes called, the meta- 
physic of essence, which has many phases, the most 
important of which is that the essence of a thing is 
that into which it will develop. 



400 TRUTH AND ERROR 

Thus, the philosophy of bodies assumed the phase 
of substance and properties. How long it held the 
judgment of mankind is shown when we remember 
that even Newton himself believed light to be 
corpuscular emanations from bodies. The last 
vestige of this doctrine remains when it is supposed 
that motion jumps from one body to another; and 
this doctrine is accompanied by another which affirms 
that path is motion itself. This doctrine of essence 
is the doctrine which Hegel, in the third chapter of 
his "Phenomenology of Spirit," sets forth as one of 
the inadequate judgments of men, which is prop- 
erly understood only when the external world is con- 
sidered as a form of thought. There is a curious 
error prevalent in scholastic times, which is the 
fallacy of substrates. It was involved in the philos- 
ophy of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, when one 
of the properties was held to be the substrate of all 
the others. But it had a long history, and assumed 
many phases, one or two of which must briefly be 
set forth. 

It was the theory that substance, or substrate, or 
essence, by whatever name it may be denominated, 
is porous, and that properties emanate from its 
pores ; that substance gives off an inexhaustible sup- 
ply of properties. Plato thought that properties 
were given off from the substance of bodies as forms. 
For a long time it was held by philosophers that 
force was thus given off from bodies as subtle emana- 
tions. 

In this stage of speculation, properties were called 
accidents, and the theory of bodies took this phase. 
Bodies are composed of substance and accidents; 
the accidents may come and go, but the substance 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 4OI 

remains. John Locke put this subject in a nut- 
shell: 

"They who first ran into the notion of accidents, as a sort of 
real beings that needed something to inhere in, were forced to 
find out the word substance to support them. Had the poor 
Indian philosopher (who imagined that the earth also wanted 
something to bear it up) but thought of this word substance, he 
needed not to have been at the trouble to find an elephant to 
support it, and a tortoise to support his elephant: the word 
substance would have done it effectually. And he that 
inquired might have taken it for as good an answer from an 
Indian philosopher, — that substance, without knowing what it 
is, is that which supports the earth, as we take it for a 
sufficient answer, and good doctrine from our European phil- 
osophers, — that substance, without knowing what it is, is that 
which supports accidents. So that of substance, we have no 
idea of what it is, but only a confused, obscure one of what 
it does. . . . 

"So that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion 
of pure substance in general, he will find he has no other idea 
of it at all, but only a supposition of he knows not what sup- 
port of such qualities which are capable of producing simple 
ideas in us ; which qualities are commonly called accidents. If 
any one should be asked, what is the subject wherein color or 
weight inheres, he would have nothing to say, but the solid 
extended parts; and if he were demanded what is it that 
solidity and extension adhere in, he would not be in a much 
better case than the Indian before mentioned, who, saying that 
the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what 
the elephant rested on; to which his answer was — a great 
tortoise : but being again pressed to know what gave support 
to the broad-backed tortoise, replied — somethings he knew not 
what. And thus here, as in all other cases where we use words 
without having clear and distinct ideas, we talk like children: 
who, being questioned what such a thing is, which they know 
not, readily give this satisfactory answer, that it is something: 
which, in truth, signifies no more, when so used, either by 
children or men, but that they know not what ; and that the 
thing they pretend to know, and talk of, is what they have no 
distinct idea of at all, and so are perfectly ignorant of it, and 



402 TRUTH AND ERROR 

in the dark. The idea then we have, to which we give the 
general name substance, being nothing but the supposed, but 
unknown, support of those qualities we- find existing, which 
we imagine cannot subsist sine re substante, without some- 
thing to support them, we call that support substantia; which, 
according to the true import of the word, is, in plain English, 
standing under or upholding." 

It is this something, we know not what, of 
which Locke speaks, that has come to be designated 
in metaphysic as noumenon, while the accidents of 
his time have come to be designated as phenomena. 
By the Greeks, the fish, seen by its ripple in the 
water, is called a phenomenon ; after it is caught and 
the fish itself is seen, instead of the ripple, it is 
called a noumenon. In modern metaphysic, both 
are called phenomena. The multitudinous proper- 
ties of bodies can all be resolved into the five essen- 
tials which we have set forth; these are the 
noumena, while the multitudinous phenomena are 
the relations of particles or bodies to one another. 
Noumena are constant or absolute ; phenomena are 
relative or variable. This leads us to the discussion 
of the delusions of ideation. 

During the stages of opinion which were char- 
acterized by a belief in the Pythagorean, Platonic, 
Aristotelian, and Scholastic fallacies, as they have 
been described above, science and metaphysic pro- 
ceeded together, hand in hand, in search of the 
truth, though the science of reality was clouded with 
the metaphysic of fallacy. But now science and 
metaphysic part company. In this new stage, not 
only does metaphysic reify, substantialize, or 
hypostasize the essentials or noumena of conscious- 
ness, but it adopts the ghost theory, for the psychic 
property is considered as a ghost which can leave 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 403 

the body and return to it. The completed stage of 
the ghost theory is idealism. Opposed to idealism 
or the ghost theory of spirit — mind or consciousness 
— is the theory which is most commonly called 
materialism, of which Spencer is the modern 
champion. 

Idealism began with Berkeley, but he formulated it 
as a system of theology, or an explanation of the 
origin of the world in the thought of God. Berkeley 
gave us, in clear and beautiful English, a theory of 
vision which was the germ of a new psychology 
developed by Helmholtz into a more scientific form, 
with greater exactness, as a scientific theory of vision 
and also of audition. So Helmholtz may be con- 
sidered as the founder of scientific psychology. But 
the idealism of Berkeley was taken up by many 
others, especially by the German school, represented 
by Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. Kant, who was the 
founder of this new German school, left the subject 
in an attitude wholly unsatisfactory to the human 
mind as a theory of monism. In his great work, 
"The Critique of Pure Reason," he pronounces 
sentence on human reason by consigning its con- 
clusions to the limbo of antinomies; in his subse- 
quent work he relegates man back to practical 
reason, that is, the formation of judgments which 
must be made in order that we may act, instead of 
what we may know. I have already mentioned the 
primal fallacies into which Kant fell; but he did not 
produce a system of idealism, nor did Fichte nor 
Schelling. It was left for Hegel to create a system. 
This he did by creating a logic of contradictories. 

Perhaps I have sufficiently set forth the nature of 
conception, through the forming of judgments of 



404 TRUTH AND ERROR 

sensation, perception, apprehension, reflection, and 
ideation, as stages in the process of forming con- 
cepts, and that until all of these stages have been 
passed there is a probability of entertaining fallacies, 
especially when we do not recognize that cognition 
is never completed until judgments are verified. 
The nature of conception or reasoning, as thus set 
forth, seems to have been understood by Hegel in 
some vague way. Hence, he properly explained 
antinomies as the final harmonizing of judgments by 
the last process in conception as ideation. So far, I 
believe his work to be sound; surely it possesses 
this germ of truth. But he did not clearly under- 
stand the nature of ideation, for he was an idealist, 
and reified the property — the psychic property — of 
bodies ; he was a monist of an abstraction, and he 
believed the external world to be a fallacy — a phan- 
tasm, an illusion, a delusion if you will — something 
which does not exist in itself. 

Hegel does not affirm but he always assumes that 
there is no external world, that is, there is no reality 
in the four mechanical properties of body, the four 
essentials — unity, extension, speed and persistence. 
They exist only as attributes of consciousness. Con- 
sciousness, or idea, to use his term, is the substrate 
from which flows the accidents or mechanical 
properties, as from its pores, in an inexhaustible sup- 
ply of fallacies. There is kind, form, force, and 
causation of conception, but there is no kind, form, 
force, and causation, except that which is ideal; 
that is, he everywhere assumes, and practically 
affirms, that the mechanical properties are the crea- 
tions of the mind. It is in this sense that he denies 
the reality of the external world. Kant gives four 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 405 

fundamental antinomies; but with Hegel all reason- 
ing about the external world, or the four properties 
of bodies, is fallacious, and the only way to cognize 
reality is first to cognize consciousness in all its 
developments, and then to cognize the external 
world as a system of fallacious judgments. Real 
cognition must be of the "idea" itself. This is the 
fallacy of Hegel. 

Kant resolves the world of thought into antinomies 
of contradictions, and refers us back to the practical 
judgments of good and evil, which control our acts; 
but Hegel develops a system in which he refers all 
of our judgments of an external world to fallacies. 
The only realities or cognitions are those about 
"idea," as he calls it, or those about consciousness, 
and its development into the faculties of the intel- 
lect, as herein set forth. According to Hegel, the 
only noumenon is the idea. Mechanical properties 
of bodies are but phenomena. There are no stars, 
and we only fallaciously think there are stars. 
There is no atmosphere, no sea, no forma- 
tions, no rocks, no nucleus; we only fallaciously 
think that they exist. There are no plants; 
we only fallaciously think there are plants. There 
are no animals; we only fallaciously think there 
are animals. But there are minds, which, by 
some occult process, exist not in time or space, 
and in this occult sense are internal, whatever 
that may be. The furniture of the world, which 
we suppose to be external, does not exist, except 
as fallacy, or, as Hegel calls it, phenomenon. Anti- 
nomies arise, when we consider them as realities. 
But antinomies disappear, if we consider them as 
ideas. 



406 TRUTH AND ERROR 

Having made this discovery, he announces it in 
the "Phenomenology, " and shows lis how he reaches 
this conclusion in a marvelous collection of sen- 
tences, paragraphs, and chapters, which, to the 
scientific mind, at first seem wholly incompre- 
hensible, for the argument is hieratic. It cannot be 
understood except by those who are initiated into the 
mysteries of its symbolic language. Though 
tempted to analyze it, I must not, for it would 
require a treatise in itself equal to that needed for the 
unraveling of the cuneiform inscriptions. However, 
I think that I may pause long enough to show the 
fundamental principles on which he proceeds: (i) 
He assumes that mind is the substrate, and hence 
the unifying principle. (2) He sees as clearly as 
may be from a study of language, that one property 
may be spoken of in the terms of another ; thus a 
space may be spoken of in terms of number, as, the 
distance from the Capitol to the White House may 
be six thousand feet. We have already seen that 
measure itself is primarily the reduction of space to 
number; it is then the reduction of motion and 
space to number; it is then the reduction of time to 
motion, and motion to space, and space to number ; 
it is then the reduction of judgment to time, and of 
time to motion, and of motion to space, and of space 
to number. These reductions are woven into all the 
language of daily life, making them tropes, or giv- 
ing them vicarious uses; but especially do we use 
terms of the mechanical properties when we speak 
of the properties of consciousness. The very same 
words that we use to speak of the properties of 
consciousness, we more often use when speaking of 
other properties, It is that which we have set 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 407 

forth as the vicarious faculty of the mind, and it is 
the foundation of trope. 

Now, when we use a word which has a great 
variety of uses, and can trace in this usage some one 
meaning as an attribute of consciousness, Hegel con- 
siders it to be the fundamental meaning, as shown 
by his practice. He affirms this, sometimes, when 
he says that every word must be taken in all its 
meaning, if it is logically used. The word compre- 
hend is used as a sign of a mental and also of a physical 
act. I may say that I comprehend the pen, when 
I mean that I understand the pen, or I may say that 
the different parts of the pen are comprehended in 
one, as the pen itself. Now, in Hegel, the word for 
comprehend seems to have many meanings that are 
really comprehended in one, and, being an idealist, 
that one meaning is its psychic significance. There 
is no such thing as a pen with mechanical properties, 
but it exists only with the properties with which I 
endow it when I think it, for I create it with my 
thought. According to the Hegelian theory, it is 
nonsense to say that I think about a pen, but it is 
the * ' thing-in-itself , " when I say I think the pen. 
This thing-in-itself is the noumenon of idealism. 
This knife is composed of the handle and its parts, 
and the blades with their parts, but, according to 
idealism, things are only what we think them to be, 
and the word composed, used in this manner, if prop- 
erly understood, is but a psychic term, for, accord- 
ing to Kant, space is a form of thought, not of 
things. When we come properly to understand the 
world, that all things are thoughts, then we see that 
the real meaning of words is their psychic meaning, 
and that words can have but one meaning. As com- 



408 TRUTH AND ERROR 

monly understood, apprehended, composed, and 
embraced in the same senses, have synonymous 
meanings, but, according to Hegel, and to idealism 
generally since his time, synonymous words 
always have the same meaning, and that mean- 
ing must be found when it expresses a psychic 
fact. This is the secret of Hegel, and the key 
to his hieroglyphics, and, if consistently used 
to interpret the sayings of his logic, it becomes an 
open book. Now, when he uses a word for any 
property whatever, we must understand, if we follow 
Hegel in his argument, that the word is used in its 
psychic meaning. If we consistently carry out this 
rule, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, 
chapter by chapter, through the "Phenomenology," 
where it generally works, on through his "Logic," 
where, perhaps, it is the universal rule, we 
can translate his hieratic codex into demotic 
speech. 

Permit a word of advice to the student who desires 
to accomplish this feat. First, read the works of 
Hegel's most devout disciples. Then take up Hegel 
himself. Then, after mastering Hegel, Kant's 
"Critique" will be an open book. The student must 
first learn the hieratic language, and then it is easy 
to read all of the works of the idealists. 

Hegel accepted not only void space and void time 
as realities, but he accepted void essence and other 
nothings which he included under the term being, 
and sometimes under the term absolute. The world 
of sense is seen by every one to be a world of 
change, and he called it becoming; the fallacies, 
then, he called the being, or the absolute, and the 
realities the becoming. In his "Logic," he says: 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 409 

"But this mere Being, as it is mere abstraction, is therefore 
the absolutely negative: which, in a similarly immediate 
aspect, is just Nothing. 

"Hence was derived the second definition of the Absolute ; the 
Absolute is the Nought. In fact this definition is implied in 
saying that the thing-in-itself is the indeterminate, utterly 
without form and so without content. . . . 

"The proposition that Being and Nothing is the same seems so 
paradoxical to the imagination or understanding, that it is 
perhaps taken for a joke. And indeed it is one of the hardest 
things thought expects itself to do: for Being and Nothing 
exhibit the fundamental contrast in all its immediacy, — that is, 
without the one term being invested with any attribute which 
would involve its connexion with the other. This attribute, 
however, as the above paragraph points out, is implicit in 
them — the attribute which is just the same in both. So far 
the [deduction of their unity is completely analytical : indeed 
the whole progress of philosophising in every case, if it be a 
methodical, that is to say, a necessary, progress, merely 
renders explicit what is implicit in a notion. It is as correct 
however to say that Being and Nothing are altogether differ- 
ent, as to assert their unity. The one is not what the other is. 
But since the distinction has not at this point assumed definite 
shape (Being and Nothing are still the immediate), it is, in the 
way that they have it, something unutterable, which we merely 
mean." 



What Hegel means is that the world of reality is 
the creation of the human mind out of nothing. 
Now, this creation of something out of nothing, as it 
produces the material universe, is kept in constant 
flux or change, for everything is in evolution and 
dissolution, and thus it is the becoming. While 
Spencer reifies the universe as force, and deems it 
the unknowable, Hegel reifies the universe as 
thought, and deems it the unutterable; so all 
metaphysical philosophers trace the universe into 
something occult. 



4IO TRUTH AND ERROR 

Hegel attempts to forestall ridicule in the follow- 
ing language : 

"No great expenditure of wit is needed to make fun of the 
maxim that Being and Nothing are the same, or rather to 
adduce absurdities which, it is erroneously asserted, are the 
consequences and illustrations of that maxim." 

Then he goes on, by a method of logic which he 
calls dialectic, to show the validity of his proposi- 
tion, in which he asserts : 

"There is absolutely nothing whatever in which we cannot 
and must not point to contradictions or opposite attributes." 

This logic is well worth perusal by the curious 
reader, as an example of mysterious arguments 
about mysteries, of propositions about the unutter- 
able, of notions about the unknowable, and of 
attributes assigned to ghosts. In such manner, 
scholastic learning transmutes folk-lore into the 
semblance of wisdom, and the pathos of poetry. 
Lowell, with sympathetic love, has given fine ex- 
pression to the thaumaturgy of transcendentalism, 
when he likens the gold-fish in the globe to souls 
imprisoned in the sphere of sense: 

"Is it illusion? Dream-stuff? Show 
Made of the wish to have it so? 
'Twere something, even though this were all: 
So the poor prisoner, on his wall 
Long gazing, from the chance designs 
Of crack, mould, weather-stain, refines 
New and new pictures without cease, 
Landscape, or saint, or altar-piece : 
But these are Fancy's common brood, 
Hatched in the nest of solitude ; 



FALLACIES OF IDEATION 411 

This is Dame Wish's hourly trade, 
By our rude sires a goddess made. 



'The worm, by trustful instinct led, 
Draws from its womb a slender thread, 
And drops, confiding that the breeze 
Will waft it to unpastured trees ; 
So the brain spins itself, and so 
Swings boldly off in hope to blow 
Across some tree of knowledge, fair 
With fruitage new, none else shall share : 
Sated with wavering in the Void, 
It backward climbs, so best employed, 
And, where no proof is nor can be, 
Seeks refuge with Analogy ; 
Truth's soft half-sister, she may tell 
Where lurks, seld-sought, the other's well. 



"The things we see as shadows I 
Know to be substance ; tell me why 
My visions, like those haunting you, 
May not be as substantial too. 
Alas, who ever answer heard 
From fish, and dream-fish too? Absurd ! 
Your consciousness I half divine, 
But you are wholly deaf to mine. 
Go, I dismiss you ; ye have done 
All that ye could ; our silk is spun ; 
Dive back into the deep of dreams, 
Where what is real is what seems ! 
Yet I shall fancy till my grave 
Your lives to mine a lesson gave ; 
If lesson none, an image, then, 
Impeaching self-conceit in men 
Who put their confidence alone 
In what they call the Seen and Known." 

Emerson sings of the mystery of transcenden- 
talism : 



412 TRUTH AND ERROR 

"The Sphinx is drowsy, 

Her wings are furled ; 
Her ear is heavy, 

She broods on the world. 
Who'll tell me my secret, 

The ages have kept? 
I awaited the seer, 

While they slumbered and slept ;- 

"The fate of the man-child; 

The meaning of man ; 
Known fruit of the unknown ; 

Daedalian plan ; 
Out of sleeping a waking, 

Out of waking a sleep ; 
Life death overtaking ; 

Deep underneath deep? 



"Up rose the merry Sphinx, 

And crouched no more in stone ; 
She melted into purple cloud, 

She silvered in the moon ; 
She spired into a yellow flame ; 

She flowered in blossoms red; 
She flowed into a foaming wave ; 

She stood Monadnoc's head." 

Great are the poets of mysticism, but there is one 
greater : 

' 'What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason ! How 
infinite in faculties ! in form, and moving, how express and 
admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, 
how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of 
animals!" 






CHAPTER XXV 

SUMMARY 

I have tried to demonstrate that an ultimate 
particle, and hence every body, has five essentials or 
concomitants, these terms being practically synony- 
mous. It has been shown that there is something 
absolute and something relative in every one. The 
essentials of the particle are unity, extension, speed, 
persistence, and consciousness, which are absolute. 
The relations which arise from them, in order, are 
multeity, position, path, change, and choice, which 
give rise to number, extension, motion, time, and 
judgment, as properties that can be measured. It 
has been pointed out that particles are incorporated 
in bodies through affinity as choice, and by this in- 
corporation the quantitative properties become clas- 
sific properties which, in order, are class, form, force, 
causation, and conception. In the development of 
number into class, unity becomes kind and plurality 
becomes series. In the development of space into 
form, extension becomes figure and position becomes 
structure. In the development of motion into force, 
speed becomes velocity and path becomes inertia. 
In the development of time into causation, persis- 
tence becomes state and change becomes event. In 
the development of judgment into conception, con- 
sciousness becomes recollection and choice becomes 
inference. 

As all particles, except those of the ether, are 
413 



414 TRUTH AND ERROR 

organized into bodies, all of these bodies may be 
viewed or considered from two standpoints — internal 
and external. If we consider the body internally we 
consider its particles externally to one another; 
therefore, we are compelled to recognize the recip- 
rocality of the two views — the quantitative view is 
equal to or the reciprocal of the classific view. 
Now, we have three terms, concomitancy, relativity, 
and reciprocality, which, in all science and especially 
in psychology, must clearly be distinguished. The 
failure to distinguish them creates the fog of 
metaphysic. 

In the ether we do not know of the existence of 
bodies, but it seems probable that only particles exist. 
We do know of astronomical bodies, geonomic 
bodies, phytonomic bodies, zoonomic bodies, and 
demotic bodies. In the last class the particles do not 
lose their three degrees of freedom of motion, but 
this freedom is transmuted into cooperative recip- 
rocality. The freedom of the particles by develop- 
ment of motility as a mode of motion becomes the 
self-activity of the individuals, which is exhibited in 
promoting the welfare of the individual and of the 
demotic body. 

Properties are not creations of the mind; they are 
founded in nature and are recognized in nature in 
the plainest manner, hence they are not artificial, 
but natural. In molecules numbers are organized 
into kinds and series, that is, into classes, the kinds 
appearing as substances and the series as totalities 
of substances. In stars spaces are integrated and 
differentiated as figures and structures, and hence 
forms are primarily organized in stars. In geonomic 
bodies motions are organized as forces, being 



SUMMARY 415 

integrated and differentiated as cooperative spheres. 
In plants times are organized as causations, antece- 
dent and consequent, as parents and children, and 
heredity thus appears. In animals judgments are 
organized, in which times become states as memories 
and changes as inferences. In this realm mind first 
appears as conception, for concepts require memory 
and inference, thus only animals have minds ; plants 
do no't have minds, but their particles have judg- 
ment, for particles have affinity and make judgments 
of association, and only such judgments. They do 
not have memory, nor do they have conception, 
therefore they do not have inference. 

All particles of plants, rocks, and stars have judg- 
ments as consciousness and choice, but having no 
organization for the psychical functions they have 
not recollection and inference ; they therefore do not 
have intellections or emotions. Only animal bodies 
have these psychical faculties. Molecules, stars, 
stones, and plants do not think ; that which we have 
attributed to them as consciousness and choice is 
only the judgment of particles ; but it is the ground, 
the foundation, the substrate of that which appears 
in animals when they are organized for conception. 

That which perchance may be called hylozoism 
in this work must radically be distinguished from 
that hylozoism which appears in metaphysical 
speculation, when it attributes mind to inanimate 
bodies, or from that belief of early mythology 
which also attributes mind to inanimate things. It 
is this error of primeval savagery, called animism, 
from which civilized men have long ago logically 
revolted, that must be distinguished from the 
hylozoism herein propounded. Perhaps it is this 



416 TRUTH AND ERROR 

repugnance to primeval error which has chiefly been 
instrumental in causing the rejection of the funda- 
mental principles of concomitance in the science of 
mind, for it has occurred to great thinkers many 
times since the revival of science effected by Colum- 
bus and Copernicus. 

It is marvelous how often it has occurred to the 
great thinkers of science as well as of metaphysics ; 
but so far as I know it was never clearly formulated 
in such a manner as to become a scientific doctrine. 
It has been held that mind itself belongs to the 
inanimate realm, when it should have been held that 
consciousness and choice 'only are inherent in this 
realm, which is developed into psychic faculties only 
by the organization of animate bodies. 

In these chapters it has been affirmed that every 
particle or body may be considered severally in its 
essentials or concomitants, and that if we consider 
one property and not the others we consider it 
abstractly. Abstraction, therefore, is the con- 
sideration of one property of a body, neglecting the 
others which we are compelled to posit. 
/ We cannot conceive one property as existing inde- 
pendently of the others, but the discovery of one 
property leads the mind by a habit, which is inexor- 
able, to postulate the others. This postulation of all 
properties from one, if neglected, leads to what 
has here been called reification. The mind that 
deals with things when it reasons, cannot make this 
mistake, but the mind that deals with words and 
thus reasons by the methods of scholastic logic, is 
liable to this error, for a particle or a body may be 
designated by the name of one of its properties. 
The failure to make this distinction may be called 



SUMMARY 417 

the ground of the failure of Aristotelian logic as 
distinguished from scientific logic. 

Having set forth the reciprocal properties of 
bodies, a brief chapter is given to explain how prop- 
erties become qualities, in which it is demonstrated 
that qualities arise through the consideration of 
properties in relation to the purposes of animal 
bodies, especially of human bodies. 

The failure to distinguish between properties and 
qualities is the fundamental error of modern meta- 
physic. For twenty-five centuries many great 
thinkers have considered the properties of a body, 
which are founded upon its essentials, and which 
essentials are the thing-in-itself, as if they were 
qualities. Discovering that qualities are forever 
changing with the point of view, as the purpose of 
the individual is changed, the reality of properties 
was questioned. 

The unreality of properties when they are con- 
founded with qualities finds expression in many 
ways. Thus it is affirmed that man is the measure 
of things, or that man is the measure of qualities, 
meaning that things or their qualities are generated 
by the mind. This is true of qualities, as I use the 
term, but it is not true of properties. Still, the 
ancients retained sanity, and believed in the thing- 
in-itself, and called it a noumenon. An attribute of 
a thing which seems to vary with the point of view 
is called a phenomenon. Then, many properties 
are imperfectly cognized, and their explanation 
depends upon investigation which has come to be 
recognized as scientific research; hence properties 
that are' still improperly explained are also called 
phenomena, but when better explained are called 



418 TRUTH AND ERROR 

noumena. Thus noumenon as used by the ancients 
is a term which means the thing which changes with 
the point of view, whether it is a change of purpose 
or a change of explanation. Thus errors of cogni- 
tion in properties are confounded with what I call 
qualities, and both are called phenomena. 

An attempt is then made to demonstrate that the 
cognition of these properties gives rise to five psychic 
faculties, which we have called sensation, perception, 
apprehension, reflection, and ideation. 

In developing the five faculties of intellection an 
endeavor has been made to set forth the nature of 
the judgment and to show that its validity depends 
upon verification. Repeated judgments from like 
sense impressions become habitual or intuitive. I 
here speak of habitual judgments of intellection as 
intuitive, as in a later work I shall speak of habitual 
judgments of emotion as instinctive, and consider 
presentative judgments as being inductive, and 
representative judgments as being deductive. The 
division of the faculties into sense perception, under- 
standing, and reason, to which metaphysic has been 
committed in a more or less clearly defined manner, 
is here rejected as a schematization that leads to 
psychological confusion. 

That speculation which deals with the properties 
of bodies as if they were qualities, I call metaphysic. 
That theorizing which distinguishes properties from 
qualities and deals with properties as realities, I call 
science. That speculation which fails to find con- 
sciousness as an essential or concomitant of bodies, 
but derives the mind from force or motion, I call 
materialism. 

Metaphysic has a history which must be unraveled 



SUMMARY 419 

to properly understand contemporaneous opinion at 
any one stage, but especially to understand the suc- 
cessive stages through which it has passed. Before 
the birth of chemistry man believed the elements to 
be earth, air, fire, and water, which elements were 
mixed in all of the bodies of the world, and it 
becomes necessary for us to understand how the 
attributes of bodies were assigned to the several 
elements. Not only was metaphysic founded upon 
these doctrines, but it was out of a philosophy of 
these elements that science itself was developed. 
Gradually in the history of civilization there grew up 
a doctrine of substance or substrate as something 
which is not one of the essentials of matter, as 
particle or body, but to which essentials adhere or 
inhere or subsist. This substrate or substance was 
supposed to be the vehicle of properties which 
emanate from it. Two relics of this doctrine are 
especially of interest to scientific men. It was long 
believed that heat and light are corpuscular, and 
that heat is given off from the substrate or substance 
of one body and taken up by another. Even Newton 
thought light to be corpuscular. The doctrine that 
motion as speed emanates from one body as a sub- 
stance or substrate and passes to another, comes 
from this source. This relic of ancient philosophy 
clings to much of modern physics, and is the founda- 
tion of a body of speculation in which scientific men 
indulge when they theorize about the dissipation of 
motion, the exhaustion of the heat of the sun, and 
the general running down of the solar system into 
a state in which life will be impossible. 

In a very brief and inadequate way I have tried to 
set forth the origin and history of fundamental 



420 TRUTH AND ERROR 

fallacies relating to properties. This history com- 
mences with the early Greeks, but we cannot under- 
stand its origin without going back to an earlier 
stage of society than that in which history presents 
the philosophy of the Hellenic tribes. 

In tribal society all honor is due to the progenitor 
of a tribe for his goodness and wisdom, and his com- 
mands have perpetual authority. The ancient time 
was the golden age ; the present is a time of degen- 
eracy. In tribal society to say that a man is elder is to 
say that he is wiser and better and must be obeyed. 
An ancient who lived in the ancient of days was 
supremely wise and good. He who can trace his 
ancestry farthest into antiquity has the most honor- 
able beginning. The most ancient, the first, the 
progenitor, the prototype, is the one to whom all 
glory must be given. In savagery, authority, wis- 
dom, honor, and parentage are so intimately 
associated in the minds of tribal men, that their 
demotic organization is dependent upon this com- 
pound concept, taken as a single principle. With 
these people demotic organization is founded upon 
the authority of the parent over the offspring. To 
be a parent is to have wisdom, and to be a parent 
is to have authority. The parent seems to have 
reason upon his side when he seeks to control the 
offspring, for the parent is the author of the off- 
spring ; therefore, the progenitor is the wise and the 
powerful, and this principle, which is at the founda- 
tion of tribal society, is so thoroughly interwoven 
into the habits of thought of the people, that it seems 
to them a self-evident proposition that the pro- 
genitor is wise and should rule. 

When a group of kindred is considered with 



SUMMARY 421 

parents and children, and collateral lines of con- 
sanguineal members, and further lines of kinship by 
affinity, the whole group organized into a tribe with 
authority in the relative elder, and all the items of 
authority parceled out in a hierarchy of real or con- 
ventional relative ages, we have the tribal plan of 
government. 

Honor for ancestors is the most profound senti- 
ment of savage men and is daily and systematically 
inculcated, so that the younger always yields 
obedience to the elder, and the elder is always held 
in reverence. 

This principle leads to a gradation of the people 
of a savage tribe into recognized ranks by relative 
age, and if a man is promoted within a tribe, such 
promotion is a formal advancement in age, and 
kinship terms are readjusted so that the age received 
by promotion may be recognized in terms of address. 
In barbarism there comes another element to 
increase this respect, for the elder is not only 
obeyed, but is worshiped as a deity. In this manner 
often the chief of the gens, which is a group within 
the tribe, and also the chief of the tribe, is wor- 
shiped. Dead ancestors are also worshiped as 
ghosts. Clans of the savage tribe become gentes of 
the barbaric tribe, and the gentes are grouped in 
phratries as religious brotherhoods, and the dead 
chief of the phratry is usually worshiped, while other 
departed members of the phratry are also worshiped. 
Chiefs, who may be called the priests of the phratry 
when they become remarkable for their ability or 
for success in shamanism as diviners, medicine-men, 
and soothsayers, are held for a long time in great 
reverence, and their accomplishments are repeated 



422 TRUTH AND ERROR 

in many a story. So in barbaric society the 
patriarch — the ancient — is held to be the progenitor 
or prototype of the gens, the phratry, or the tribe, 
as the case may be. In gentes, phratries, and tribes 
there is a constant veneration of ancestral ancients. 
This appears to have been the case among the 
Hellenic tribes, which belonged to that stage of 
culture which we call barbarism. 

In savagery seven worlds are developed, as the 
east, west, north, south, zenith, nadir, and center; 
and they schematize or systematize all the attributes 
of things into seven groups. As geographic knowl- 
edge increases, those attributes which are assigned 
to the four quarters of the earth, are by natural 
methods transferred from the cardinal worlds to 
certain leading attributes of those worlds represented 
by earth, air, fire, and water. In this manner the 
worlds are transmuted into elements, but there still 
remain the zenith, nadir, and center — the zenith 
becoming a world of exalted attributes which they 
suppose to be good, the nadir becoming a world of 
evil. 

Greek philosophy was developed at a time when 
tribal society was developing. Upon the ruins of 
tribal society imperialism was erected. The Greek 
philosophers inherited the cosmology of barbarism 
and with it the habits of thought characteristic of 
barbarism, especially the mental tendency to claim 
superiority for the ancient or first. Hence they 
claimed superiority for one or another of the four 
elements. Particularly was air, fire, or water held 
to be the first or progenitor of the others. In all 
their concepts about the absolutes of bodies, whether 
considering properties or qualities, there always 



SUMMARY 423 

seems to be a factor of this tribal concept. Thus 
we see that one of the barbaric elements was always 
taken as the substrate of the others. Thus was 
born the doctrine of substrate. 

When imperialism had led to monotheism, and the 
school of theology was the school of philosophy 
also, a new substrate was discovered — the deity as 
something eminent in the world of attributes. At 
last, in comparatively modern times, another sub- 
strate was developed in speculation as a something 
to which the attributes could inhere. This reinca- 
tion still holds a place in the speculation even of 
scientific men and vitiates our popular physics. It 
is the chimera of substrate, this thing in itself as 
noumenon that leads to the belief in the world only 
as phenomenon. Since Berkeley and Hume a 
special school of metaphysicians has been developed 
who have the custody of this ghost and are its leal 
defenders. The fifth property, or consciousness as 
mind, is their ghost. These are the idealists. The 
war of philosophy is between Idealists and 
Materialists. 

The philosophy here presented is neither Idealism 
nor Materialism ; I would fain call it the Philosophy 
of Science. 



INDEX 



Activities, human, considered, 
180. 

Adaptation, laws of, 201. 

Affinity, phenomena of, 41. 

Animals, principles or prop- 
erties of, 74. 

Animals, environment of, 75. 

Animals, motility in, 76. 

Animals, heredity in, 76. 

Animals, reproduction of, 77. 

Animals, judgment in, 77. 

Animals, systems of organs in, 
78. 

Animals, metabolic processes 
in, 79. 

Animals, functions in, 83. 

Animals, nervous system in, 
87. 

Animals, sense organs of, 89. 

Apprehension, 237. 

Apprehension, term restricted 
to judgment of force, 237. 

Apprehension, both induc- 
tive and deductive, 243. 

Apprehension, definition of, 
250. 

Apprehension, fallacies of, 
352. 

Assimilation, constructive, 66. 

Assimilation, differentiating, 
66. 

Atmospheric agencies of dis- 
integration, 48. 

Berkeley, idealism of, 403. 
Botany, facts relating to, 137. 



Causation, primal fallacy of, 

381. 
Causation, study of, 186. 
Cause and effect, 37. 
Causes, genetic, 39. 
Causes, teleologic, 39. 
Chuar's illusion, 1. 
Classification, definition of, 

109. 
Classification, method of, 113. 
Classification, test of, 117. 
Classification, goal of the 

science of, 118. 
Classification, erroneous meth- 
ods of, 119. 
Classification, fundamental 

among Greeks, 122. 
Classification, a tool of logic, 

126. 
Classification, logical and 

mathematical methods of, 

Cognition defined, 283. 

Conception, a process of con- 
solidating judgments, 214. 

Consciousness considered, 
211. 

Cooperation discussed, 168. 

Cooperation in celestial realm, 

173. 

Cooperation in terrestrial 

spheres, 174. 
Cooperation in vegetal realm, 

174. 
Cooperation in zoonomic 
realm, 174. 



425 



426 



TRUTH AND ERROR 



Cooperation of systems with 

systems, 177. 
Cooperation, societies formed 

by, 179. 
Cosmology, origin of systems 

of, 377- 
Culture, law of, 201. 

Darwin, acceleration of evolu- 
tion discovered by, 197. 

Doctrines taught by modern 
science, 9. 

Dynamics discussed, 152. 

Earth, composition of, 42. 

Earth, form of, 43. 

Earth, geologic facts, 43. 

Earth, aqueous envelope, 45. 

Earth, oscillations of upheaval 
and subsidence, 45. 

Earth, structure of crust of, 47. 

Earth, changes effected in 
crust by water, 60. 

Effort, law of, 200. 

Environment, effect of, 204. 

Environment of animals, 75. 

Evolution discussed, 183. 

Evolution, primal law of, 188. 

Evolution, organization of de- 
motic life a factor in, 200. 

Force, compound of motions, 

36. 
Forces, outline of. 171. 
Functions, control of, 178. 

Generations or properties of 

plants, 64. 
Geochemism, the fundamental 

energy, 59- 
Geonomic bodies, properties of, 

42. 
Geonomic realm, constitution 

of, 192. 
Geonomy, divisions of, 136. 

Hallucinations defined, 313. 

Hallucinations, so-called cen- 
sus of, 315. 

Hallucinations, classification 
of, 320. 



Hallucinations, among North 
American Indians, 330. 

Hegel, fallacies of, 405. 

Heredity, effect of, 177. 

Hereditv, element of, in plants, 
65. 

Heredity, law of, 199. 

Heterogeneity, law of, 199. 

Homologies, extended from 
atom to organism, 145. 

Homologies, hierarchy of, 
throughout universe, 146. 

Homologies, illustrated in 
organization of human soci- 
ety, 146. 

Homologies, in natural organ- 
ization, 147. 

Homology discussed, 133. 

Human body, a hierarchy of 
conscious bodies, 86. 

Hylozoism, theory of, 95. 

Hypotheses relating to changes 
in earth's crust, 51. 

Ideation discussed, 264 
Ideation, fallacies of, 391. 
Inertia, definition of, 360. 
Intellections discussed, 278. 
Intellections, psychology a 

system of, 278. 
Intellections, faculties of, 279. 

Judgment, psychic elements 

of, 280. 
Judgment relating to cause 

and effect, 282. 

Lamarck, motile state of mat- 
ter discovered by, 199. 

La Place, on genesis of heav- 
enly bodies, 190. 

Law governing phenomena of 
earth's crust, search for, 50. 

Locke, John, on accidents, 401. 

Mathematics of motion, science 
of, 27. 

Matter, definition of, 12. 

Memory, physiological concep- 
tion of, 333. 

Metabolism in plants, 72. 



INDEX 



427 



Metabolism in animals, 74. 

Metagenesis, a process of 
causality, 63. 

Metamorphoses of mineral sub- 
stances, 56. 

Metaphysical reasoning, errors 

*~ of, 276. 

Metaphysisis, a succession of 
changes of force, 59. 

Mill, John Stuart, on causa- 
tion, 38. 

Misperceptions, illustrations of, 

338-339- 

Molar bodies, definition of, 21, 
129. 

Molecular bodies, internal rela- 
tions of, 21. 

Morphology, illustrated by 
animals and their organs, 
142. 

Morphology, illustrated by in- 
sects, 145. 

Morphology and classification, 
relation between, 148. 

Morphology of plant phytons, 
70. 

Motion of atoms, 152. 

Motion, Descartes' theory, 153. 

Motion, laws of, 163. 

Motion, vibratory and struc- 
tural, 169. 

Motion, persistence of, 358. 

Motion, concepts of, 361. 

Myths, discussion of, 381. 

Nature, five fundamental 

realms of, 96. 
Newton, theory of inertia, 161. 

Ontology, philosophy of, 399. 

Parish, on hallucinations and 

illusions, 311. 
Particles, inanimate, essentials 

of, 16. 
Particles of matter, affinity of, 

31- 

Particles of matter, combina- 
tion into molecules, 31. 

Particles of matter, classifica- 
tion, 31. 



Particles of matter, vibration 
of, 35. 

Particles of matter, persistence 
of, interrupted, 36. 

Perception discussed, 226. 

Perception, fallacies of, 335. 

Perception, as a mental phe- 
nomenon, 341. 

Perception, trie interpretation 
of a symbol, 342. 

Phenomena, erroneously classi- 
fied by Mill, 120. 

Philosophy, transcendental, 
errors of, 149. 

Philosophy of the unknowable, 
refutation of Spencer's, 370. 

Plants, chemical laboratories, 
69. 

Plants, cells, tissues and forms 
of, 69. 

Plants, conditions of life, 72. 

Processes or the properties of 
geonomic bodies, 42. 

Properties, essentials of, 9. 

Protoplasm, constitution of, 64. 

Psych ophysics, science of, 120. 

Qualities, definition of, 98. 

Qualities, distinct from prop- 
erties, 100. 

Qualities, errors of Locke in 
relation to, 102. 

Qualities, termed attributes by 
Spencer, 105. 

Qualities, Berkeley's "opinions 
in relation to, 107. 

Qualities, Hume, Kant, Schill- 
ing and Fichte on, 107. 

Quantities or properties that 
are measured, 20. 



Reflection discussed, 251. 

Reflection, concepts of, 253. 

Reflection, definition of, 263. 

Reflection, process of combin- 
ing judgments by, 289. 

Reflection, fallacies of, 374. 

Reification, origin of, 3. 

Relations that must exist 
between particles, 23. 



428 



TRUTH AND ERROR 



Science and speculation, issue 
between, 150. 

Science and metaphysics, dif- 
ference of methods, 184. 

Sciences, distinction between 
classific and quantitative, 
246. 

Scientific research, definition 

of, 7- 

Sensation discussed, 207. 

Sensation and feeling, differ- 
ence between, 207. 

Sensation, fallacies of, 307. 

Sense impressions, 223. 

Senses, vicarious feelings, 
209. 

Signatures, the doctrine of, 
385. 



Solar system, motions within, 

34- 
Space, definition of, 133. 
Specters, classification of, 348. 
Structural geology, 56. 
Substrates, recapitulation of, 

222. 
Survival, law of, 199. 
Symbolism, explanation of the 

laws of, 300. 

Time, development by incor- 
poration, 36. 

Transmutation of substances 
in rocks, 54. 

Verification, methods of, 220. 
Volcanic eruptions, 47. 



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